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Eerie Image Shows Spectacular Aftermath of a Large Star’s Death

An undated image shows a view of the orange and pink clouds that make up what remains after the explosive death of a massive star - the Vela supernova remnant. (ESO/VPHAS+ team/Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit/Handout via Reuters)
An undated image shows a view of the orange and pink clouds that make up what remains after the explosive death of a massive star - the Vela supernova remnant. (ESO/VPHAS+ team/Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit/Handout via Reuters)
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Eerie Image Shows Spectacular Aftermath of a Large Star’s Death

An undated image shows a view of the orange and pink clouds that make up what remains after the explosive death of a massive star - the Vela supernova remnant. (ESO/VPHAS+ team/Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit/Handout via Reuters)
An undated image shows a view of the orange and pink clouds that make up what remains after the explosive death of a massive star - the Vela supernova remnant. (ESO/VPHAS+ team/Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit/Handout via Reuters)

The aftermath of a large star's explosive death is seen in an image released on Monday by the European Southern Observatory, showing immense filaments of brightly shining gas that was blasted into space during the supernova.

Before exploding at the end of its life cycle, the star is believed to have had a mass at least eight times greater than our sun. It was located in our Milky Way galaxy about 800 light years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Vela. A light year is the distance light travels in a year, 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km).

The eerie image shows clouds of gas that look like pink and orange tendrils in the filters used by the astronomers, covering an expanse roughly 600 times larger than our solar system.

"The filamentary structure is the gas that was ejected from the supernova explosion, which created this nebula. We see the inside material of a star as it expands into space. When there are denser parts, some of the supernova material shocks with the surrounding gas and creates some of the filamentary structure," said Bruno Leibundgut, an astronomer affiliated with the European Southern Observatory (ESO).

The image shows the supernova remnants about 11,000 years after the explosion, Leibundgut said.

"Most of the material that shines is due to hydrogen atoms that are excited. The beauty of such images is that we can directly see what material was inside a star," Leibundgut added.

"The material that has been built up over many millions of years is now exposed and will cool down over millions of years until it eventually will form new stars. These supernovae produce many elements - calcium or iron - which we carry in our own bodies. This is a spectacular part of the path in the evolution of stars."

The star itself has been reduced in the aftermath of the supernova to an incredibly dense spinning object called a pulsar. A pulsar is a type of neutron star - one of the most compact celestial objects known to exist. This one rotates 10 times per second.

The image represented a mosaic of observations taken with a wide-field camera called OmegaCAM at the VLT Survey Telescope, hosted at the ESO's Paranal Observatory in Chile. The data for the image was collected from 2013 to 2016, the ESO said.

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Back in the Pink: Senegal Salt Lake Gets Its Color Back

An aerial view of Lake Retba, known as the Pink Lake, in Senegal on March 19, 2025. (AFP)
An aerial view of Lake Retba, known as the Pink Lake, in Senegal on March 19, 2025. (AFP)
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Back in the Pink: Senegal Salt Lake Gets Its Color Back

An aerial view of Lake Retba, known as the Pink Lake, in Senegal on March 19, 2025. (AFP)
An aerial view of Lake Retba, known as the Pink Lake, in Senegal on March 19, 2025. (AFP)

The waters of Senegal's Lake Retba are back to their famous pink hues three years after floods washed away their rosy tinge -- and businessfolk and tourists are thrilled.

No sooner had the news hit social media when Julie Barrilliot, 20, bought a plane ticket to fly over from France.

Widely known as the "Pink Lake," Retba is a magnet for tourists, lying 40 kilometers (25 miles) northeast of the capital Dakar.

Separated from the Atlantic by a narrow dune, the shallow lake is so densely laden with salt that, as in the Dead Sea, bathers float like corks.

Harvesting and selling the salt -- that plays a key role in imbuing the lake with its signature tinge -- from its waters is a lucrative sideline.

But in late 2022, unusual and heavy flooding hit the region, likely aggravated by climate change scientists told AFP at the time, and disturbed the ecological balance of the lake.

Afterwards, the water lost its pinkish color, proving a hammer blow to salt producers, traders, hotel owners and other commercial activities linked to the legendary "Pink Lake".

"In 2023, we noticed that our activities were slowing down and we undertook to rent a pump to extract the excess water from the lake, which had engulfed the entire ecosystem favorable to its pink hue," Amadou Bocoum Diouf, manager of the Chez Salim hotel, told AFP.

"Its depth had gone from two to six meters (6.6 to 20 feet)," Diouf, who is also president of the union grouping traders and hoteliers of the lake, added.

The pumping operation cost them several million CFA francs (several thousand euros) before the government stepped in, he said.

"But it's not all pink?" remarked Barrilliot disappointedly, who tried to console herself with a horse ride near where she was staying.

The hotel manager Ibrahima Mbaye, who heads an association to protect the lake, tried to reassure her that within an hour or two the pink color would be back.

"For there to be pink, it needs warm sun and a fresh wind," Mbaye said. His Gite du Lac hotel has been swamped with phone calls from operators and foreign tourists wanting to know for sure that the lake is back to its famous color.

And just before midday, the waters' shimmer turned to pink.

- 'Capricious' -

Mbaye said that when the conditions are right, there is a high concentration of salt in the lake coming from sea water.

"In contact with the sun, this salt concentration produces a large amount of evaporation, conducive to the proliferation of micro-organisms, particularly those called Pink algae," he added.

Cheikh Mbow, from the state-run National Ecological Monitoring Committee, told AFP that cyanobacteria produced the pink when its red pigment diluted in the water.

When a bus load of tourists pulled up on the pinkest side of the lake, Mbaye's eyes lit up -- his pride at seeing the stretch of water where he was born and that was once the finish line of the legendary Dakar Rally was obvious.

Mouadou Ndiaye, who sells bags and sachets of salt, ran over to the French visitors hoping for some sales before they departed.

"We've hardly had any tourists for more than two years," the 60-year-old said, slightly out of breath and barefoot on the sandy, shell-strewn ground.

He stuck it out during the less-than-rosier times, while many others threw in the towel.

"Many left for the towns and surrounding villages," Maguette Ndiour, head of the Pink Lake salt producers' group, said.

Residents fear intensive building will lead to the lake becoming polluted -- a small group of protesters held a rally that day against plans for 1,000 dwellings near the lake.

Mbow, of the ecological monitoring committee, warned that even minimal pollution could tip the balance.

"It's essential to reduce the negative impact of human activities," he said.

As the sun started to go down by late afternoon, the pink of the lake had begun to fade. "Sometimes it's capricious but it's always beautiful," Ibrahima said, smiling.