Well it’s not exactly new, but an image from the Hubble Space Telescope of V838 Monocerotis looks remarkably similar to the logo of a popular open source project. Just take a look:

Aside from this rather cool coincidence, the image is a good example on how beautiful the Universe can be. Also, we actually have a hard time explaining what is going on, making it even more interesting. First everybody thought that this outburst of gas was a typical nova, an explosion due to the exchange of matter between a white dwarf and a nearby star, but on closer inspection, the system should not include a white dwarf, let alone have had the time to accrete enough material onto the surface of it. This eventually makes it explode as there’s a limit to how much mass the physics of a white dwarf can bare (around 1.4 solar masses if I remember correctly).

So what is it then? Well there are some theories, but as far as I can see, nothing has been concluded yet. It could be an outburst from the supergiant star in it’s deathbed, or the swallowing of a large planet (go read more on the Wikipedia page), but whatever it is, it’s quite spectacular and we should continue to investigate the system further. Who knows, maybe we’ll discover a completely new type of explosion leading to spectacular gas eruptions like this.

Until then, let’s just thank the Universe for kicking in on the good course for unbreaking the internet.