Most detailed video yet of bubbles on a star’s surface

Astronomers have captured images of a star other than the Sun in enough detail to track the motion of bubbling gas on its surface. The images of the star, R Doradus, were obtained with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), a telescope co-owned by ESO, in July and August 2023. This video shows a timelapse of the star’s surface, where giant, hot bubbles of gas — 75 times the size of the Sun — are seen appearing on the surface and sinking back into the star’s interior.

All images featured in this video are real images taken with ALMA.