Like the United States of America, the universe has been celebrating its own existence with fireworks since its beginning — the Big Bang, in the univere's case. Now, 243 years after the U.S. came into existence and 13.8 billion years after the universe did, NASA researchers have discovered a distant star system exploding in festive red, white and blue light, roughly 5 million times brighter than Earth's sun.
Image: Eta Carinae, a distant star spouting twin nebulae of red, white and blue gas, is pumped for Independence Day. Credit: NASA, ESA, N. Smith (University of Arizona) and J. Morse (BoldlyGo Institute)
