What's happening here is very turbulent. The red giant is what is known as a
Mira variable star, a star at the very end of its lifespan. These kind of stars have already lost at least half their material, and as they pulsate, they reach a brightness 1,000 times that of the Sun.
The
white dwarf – an end-of-life star that has exhausted its nuclear fuel – is also quite busy. The material it devours from the red giant accumulates on the white dwarf's surface, occasionally triggering an enormous thermonuclear explosion that blasts the material out into space.
This amazingly clear image shows both the stars at the centre of the jets of material spinning out into space. Eventually, this binary system's life could end in a colossal explosion – a
Type Ia supernova.
