A Star of Space and Film

Rollie Hawk writes "Three years ago, light from V838 Monocerotis (a star about 20,000 light years from us) reached the Earth that showed the star exploding. The more politically correct term for what happened is "stellar outburst." In the time since, images from a pulse of light released during the outburst have been arriving here on Earth. In October of 2004, Hubble captured a beautiful image of the scene with the pulse lighting up interstellar gasses that encapsulated the area around this red giant (a star 600,000 times brighter than our Sun). The release of this photo just days ago seems rather timely, as it appears that some of Hubble's funding may be cut in the near future. There is also talk of eliminating the program entirely."