These ‘Star’ Photos Aren’t What You Think—And It’s Mind-Blowing.mp4

They might not look like stars, but they are.

Transcript

00:00we all know what stars look like right but what if i told you this wild image of reds and purples

00:08greens and yellows is actually an image captured by a telescope looking at one of them this image

00:13was captured by one of gemini south telescope's newest bits of tech the gemini high resolution

00:18optical spectrograph or ghost the telescope was pointed at a star with the very catchy name hd

00:23222925 and the image is a high resolution capture of the light being emitted by it in every

00:29optical spectrum of light known to man astronomers say while this is the instrument's first outing

00:34in the future it will likely be a quote essential component of the astronomers toolbox that's because

00:39the light tells us more about a star than just its composition science alert reports that it can

00:43reveal the star's movement and how it's spinning or oscillating and the content of the light can also

00:47tell astronomers how old it is and where it came from this star is around 1460 light years away

00:53and a spectral analysis has already shown that it has the most complex composition ever discovered

00:58in a star made up of some 65 different elements which experts say it likely formed when neutron stars

01:04collided or after a catastrophic supernova