R Leporis: A Vampire’s Star
Image Credit & Copyright: Martin Pugh

Explanation: Better known as Hind’s Crimson Star, R Leporis is a rare star in planet Earth’s night sky. It’s also a shocking shade of red. The star’s discoverer, 19th century English astronomer John Russell Hind, reported that it appeared in a telescope “… like a drop of blood on a black field.” Located 1,360 light-years away in the constellation Lepus the star is a Mira-type variable, changing its brightness over a period of about 14 months. R Leporis is now recognized as a carbon star, a very cool and highly evolved red giant with an extreme abundance of carbon. Extra carbon in carbon stars is created by helium fusion near the dying stellar core and dredged up into the stars’ outer layers. The dredge-up results in an overabundance of simple carbon molecules, like CO, CH, CN, and C2. While it’s true that cool stars radiate most of their energy in red and infrared light, the carbon molecules strongly absorb what little blue light is left and give carbon stars an exceptionally deep red color. R Leporis is losing its carbon-rich atmosphere into the surrounding interstellar material through a strong stellar wind though, and could be near the transition to a planetary nebula. Oh, and Happy Halloween from the folks at APOD.

Tomorrow’s picture: ghost of long-dead star

Orionids Meteors over Inner Mongolia
Image Credit & Copyright: Yin Hao

Explanation: Meteors have been shooting out from the constellation of Orion. This was expected, as October is the time of year for the Orionids Meteor Shower. Pictured here, over two dozen meteors were caught in successively added exposures last October over Wulan Hada volcano in Inner Mongolia, China. The featured image shows multiple meteor streaks that can all be connected to a single small region on the sky called the radiant, here visible just above and to the left of the belt of Orion, The Orionids meteors started as sand sized bits expelled from Comet Halley during one of its trips to the inner Solar System. Comet Halley is actually responsible for two known meteor showers, the other known as the Eta Aquarids and visible every May. An Orionids image featured on APOD one year ago today from the same location shows the same car. Next month, the Leonids Meteor Shower from Comet Tempel-Tuttle should also result in some bright meteor streaks.

Tomorrow’s picture: vampire star

Shells of Stars in Elliptical Galaxy PGC 42871
Image Credit: Hubble Legacy Archive, NASA, ESA; Processing & Copyright: Domingo Pestana

Explanation: How do galaxies grow? To help find out, the Hubble Space Telescope was deployed to image the unusual elliptical galaxy PGC 42871. How this galaxy came to be surrounded by numerous shells of stars may give clues about how it evolved. Embedded in the diffuse shells are massive globular clusters of stars — stars which analyses show were born during three different epochs. This and other data indicate that PGC 42871 has been in at least two galactic collisions, at least one of which might have been with a former spiral galaxy. The remaining spiral galaxy on the far left is at the same distance as PGC 42871 and may have been involved in some of the collisions. PGC 42871 spans about 20 thousand light years and lies about 270 million light years away toward the constellation of Centaurus.

Tomorrow’s picture: orionids from orion