The star, known as WOH G64, is 160,000 light-years from Earth in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small neighboring galaxy that orbits the Milky Way. Van Loon has observed WOH G64 since the 1990s and studied it as a student at the European Southern Observatory. The Hubble Space Telescope soon revealed it had indeed been a red supergiant in the past, perhaps 20,000 years before the explosion. “If this is what we are seeing (WOH G64) doing, then a spectacle awaits us soon,” van Loon said. It’s nowhere near as bright or variable as WOH G64, van Loon said, and only experienced a brief hiccup compared with what WOH G64 is undergoing.

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Persons: ”, Keiichi Ohnaka, Jacco van, UK’s Keele University . Van Loon, van Loon, Gerd Weigelt, Max Planck, It’s, Edward Guinan, Guinan, “, ” van Loon, Ohnaka Organizations: CNN —, Southern, Astrophysics, “, Andrés Bello National University, Keele Observatory, UK’s Keele University . Van, European Southern Observatory, Max, Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, Villanova University in, Hubble Locations: Atacama, Chile, Jacco van Loon, Bonn, Germany, Villanova University in Pennsylvania