π1 Gruis: Giant Bubbles on Red Giant Star’s Surface | ESO

π1 Gruis: Giant Bubbles on Red Giant Star’s Surface | ESO

ESOcast 144 Light: Astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) have directly observed granulation patterns on the surface of a star outside the Solar System—the ageing red giant π1 Gruis.

A remarkable image from the PIONIER instrument reveals the convective cells that make up the surface of this huge star, which is 350 times larger than the Sun. Each cell covers more than a quarter of the star’s diameter and measures about 120 million kilometers across.

The ESOcast Light is a series of short videos bringing you the wonders of the Universe in bite-sized pieces. 

Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO)

Directed by: Nico Bartmann

Editing: Nico Bartmann

Web and technical support: Mathias André and Raquel Yumi Shida

Written by: Rosa Jesse and Richard Hook

Footage and photos: ESO, B. Lazareff (LAOG), Digitized Sky Survey 2, N. Risinger, NASA, SDO, M. Kornmesser, L. Calçada, H. Boffin, ESA

Executive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

Duration: 1 minute, 24 seconds

Release Date: December 20, 2017

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