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Sunspots as you've never seen them before: Astronomers reveal video showing eruptions flowing and merging on a giant red star OUTSIDE our solar system

Astronomers from Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) created the video showing stellar spots on a star outside our solar system
The star is named XX Triangulum, located about 1,500 light-years away
Film was made using data collected by the Stella telescopes on Tenerife

Published: 13:39 EST, 22 October 2015 | Updated: 14:05 EST, 22 October 2015

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Sunspots have fascinated star gazers for centuries.

Now German astronomers have created a video showing the evolution of similar stellar spots on a star outside our solar system.

They captured the fascinating phenomenon occurring on a red giant star named XX Triangulum, located about 1,500 light-years away that's 10 times larger than our sun.

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German astronomers have created a video showing the evolution of similar stellar spots on a star outside our solar system (one still is pictured). They captured the fascinating phenomenon occurring on a red giant star named XX Triangulum, located about 1,500 light-years away that's 10 times larger than our sun

Astronomers from Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) made the film using data collected by the Stella robotic telescopes on Tenerife.

It shows the growth and fade of giant stellar spots on the star over a period of six earth years.

The spots reveal an underlying magnetic cycle that has a period comparable to our sun's, but is much stronger.

It's incredibly difficult to image stellar surfaces other than our sun's.

The astronomers compiled spectroscopic data - the interaction between matter and electromagnetic radiation – and used complex mathematics to make the film.

The found XX Triangulum has a rotation period of 24 days, which meant the astronomers were unable to directly observe spots on the surface of this distant star, Redorbit.com explained.

WHAT ARE STELLAR SPOTS?

Stellar spots, or starspots, are the equivalent of sunspots located on other stars.

They are very hard to detect on other stars because they are too small to cause detectable fluctuations in brightness.

Observed starspots are in general much larger - up to 100 times bigger - than those on the Sun.

For rapidly rotating stars, Doppler imaging is used, but for slower-rotating stars, another method called Line Depth ratio (LDR) is used.

Doppler imaging gives the smoothest and simplest image consistent with observations of inhomogeneous structures on the surface of stars, such as temperature differences or magnetic fields.

They had to rely on a method, known as Doppler imaging or Doppler tomography to recreate the distant star indirectly.

The method is the most advanced tool for the study of stars and gives the smoothest and simplest image consistent with observations of magnetic fields, for example.

To make a single image or frame of the star's surface, they had to view it using the telescopes every night during the 24 day rotation, collecting data between July 2006 and April 2012.

The result is a video showing 86 rotational periods of the star from three different viewpoints, including a 'real view' and one focused on one of the star's poles.

A statement from the AIP says: 'The movie shows a star-spot distribution with ever changing morphology, such as spot fragmentation and spot merging, and with apparently a large range of variability timescales.

Andreas Künstler of the AIP said: 'We can see our first application as a prototype for upcoming stellar cycle studies, as it enables the prediction of a magnetic-activity cycle on a dramatically shorter timescale than usual.'

The study is published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

The researchers had to rely on a method, known as Doppler imaging or Doppler tomography to recreate the distant star indirectly. This image shows a sunspot on the surface of our sun, in far more detail