Awesome 4-Year Timelapse Video of a Star’s Light Echo

Photography Tips  •  Time-lapse Photography

Timelapse photography has been used to capture all sorts of natural phenomena, from cloudscapes and stars to people moving about in a cityscape and plants growing, but this four-year compilation from the Hubble Space Telescope made history:

On January 6, 2002, an unknown star in the constellation Monoceros (the Unicorn) underwent a huge explosion, briefly causing it to become one of the most luminous stars in the Milky Way. The light reflecting off  the dust clouds produced the most spectacular “light echo” in the history of astronomy.

V838 Monocerotis

“The unusual variable star V838 Monocerotis (V838 Mon) continues to puzzle astronomers. This previously inconspicuous star underwent an outburst early in 2002, during which it temporarily increased in brightness to become 600,000 times more luminous than our Sun.” — Our Universe Visualized