Chandra Release - May 31, 2019

Visual Description: HR 9024

This artist's illustration depicts a powerful coronal mass ejection (CME) erupting from the surface of a star. At the center, a bright, glowing star radiates in intense red and orange colors, surrounded by a faint orange halo that represents its outer atmosphere. From the star's surface, a sweeping arc of hot plasma bursts outward into space at 10 o'clock, shown as a billowing wave of red, orange, and golden gas. Smaller, glowing filaments and sparks within the ejected material emphasize the dynamic, explosive nature of the event. The surrounding space fades into deep black, with sprinkles of galactic dust and distant stars, as well as a small red star far distant at 11 o'clock. This visualization illustrates the kind of stellar CME observed by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, the first detected from a star beyond the Sun.