Star light, Star bright

Wow. The red star in the center of this beautiful image is the erupting supergiant V838 Monocerotis, surrounded by circumstellar dust. It's located about 20,000 light-years away from earth in the direction of the constellation Monoceros (the unicorn), on the outer edge of the Milky Way. During its outburst, the star became more than 600,000 times brighter than our sun.