For the first time, humanity has recorded the final moments of a giant star.

This is the first time scientists have captured a close-up image of a giant star located outside the Milky Way galaxy using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) based in Chile.

In a major scientific breakthrough, researchers have captured a close-up image of a giant star in the final stages of its life.

The star, named WOH G64 , is located about 160,000 light-years from Earth, in the neighboring galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud.

Image of the WOH G64 star next to an artistic reproduction. (Source: ESO/K. Ohnaka).

The slightly blurry image was captured by the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) based in Chile. Remarkably, it is the first time scientists have captured a close-up image of a mature star outside the Milky Way.

The images show an egg-shaped shell of gas and dust surrounding the star - a sign of an impending stellar explosion. This is also the first time scientists have directly observed this process, opening a new chapter in the study of the existence and disappearance of stars.

The star is in the final stages of its life before exploding, said astronomer Keiichi Ohnaka of Andrés Bello University in Chile, lead author of the study published Nov. 21 in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

WOH G64 is estimated to be about 25 to 40 times the mass of the Sun, which means the star has existed for about 10 to 20 million years, according to study co-author Jacco van Loon of Keele University in the UK.

Over the past 10 years, the star has dimmed considerably, while WOH G64's diameter has continued to swell ahead of the explosion. If the star were placed at the center of the Solar System, WOH G64's diameter would extend all the way to the orbit of Saturn, the sixth planet from the Sun.

Typically, massive stars have shorter lifespans than less massive stars. The Sun, for example, is more than 4.5 billion years old and is expected to last for billions of years more.

Scientists have not yet been able to determine exactly when the star WOH G64 will explode. However, they believe that this event will occur in the near future on the cosmic time scale.