NASA has released a striking photo taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope of RS Puppis, a Cepheid type variable star. The brightest star in the Hubble image, RS Puppis is surrounded by a dazzling reflection nebula.
This Hubble image shows RS Puppis, one of the most luminous in the class of Cepheid variable stars. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble Heritage Team / STScI / AURA / H. Bond, STScI and Pennsylvania State University.
Located in the constellation Puppis, RS Puppis is about 10 times more massive than the Sun and 200 times larger.
This supergiant star pulsates every 41.5 days, during which time its radius, temperature, and luminosity change.
Its average intrinsic brightness is 15,000 times greater than the Sun’s luminosity.
The surrounding nebula flickers in brightness as pulses of light from the Cepheid propagate outwards.
Hubble took a series of photos of light flashes rippling across the nebula in a phenomenon known as a ‘light echo.’
Even though light travels through space fast enough to span the gap between Earth and the Moon in a little over a second, the nebula is so large that reflected light can actually be photographed traversing the nebula.
By observing the fluctuation of light in RS Puppis itself, as well as recording the faint reflections of light pulses moving across the nebula, astronomers are able to measure these light echoes and pin down a very accurate distance.
The distance to RS Puppis has been narrowed down to 6,500 light-years.
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