Visualization: Joseph A. Insley, Argonne National Laboratory
Science: Yan-Fei Jiang, Matteo Cantiello, Lars Bildsten, Eliot Quataert, Omer Blaes, and James Stone, UC, Santa Barbara

Luminous blue variable stars undergo periodic mass ejections, resulting in large variations in their observed spectra and brightness. Scientists learned that helium opacity plays a large role in triggering such outbursts, and in setting their effective temperature.

These discoveries were made by running radiation hydrodynamic simulations using a 3D model of an 80-solar-mass star.