WOH G64 star

Why in news?

• Astronomers have obtained the first detailed picture of a star outside our galaxy, the Milky Way.
• This star has been named as 'WOH G64'.

WOH G64 star

• The WOH G64 star is located 1,60,000 light years away from Earth in the 'Large Magellanic Cloud', a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way.
• It is considered to be a 'Red Giant' star, whose size is about 2,000 times larger than our Sun.
• A detailed image of this star has been taken under the leadership of Keiichi Ohnaka in Chile using the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) of the European Observatory.
• This detailed image clearly shows a star in its dying phase, surrounded by gas and dust as it heads towards its death in a massive explosion called a supernova.
• This is the first time scientists have imaged a star in this state, outside our own galaxy.