Thread: For the space fans

Scientists discover monster star - CNN.com

Scientists discover monster star

(CNN) -- Imagine a star so luminous that it would burn the Earth up if it were anywhere near, a star that outshines the sun as much as the sun outshines the moon. A monster even in the abyss of space.
The star is not some scientist's celestial dream. Astronomers used a Very Large Telescope -- the instrument's official name -- to detect the most massive star discovered to date. In scientific lingo, it's a "hypergiant."
Led by Paul Crowther, professor of astrophysics at England's University of Sheffield, the team of astronomers studied two young clusters of stars, NGC 3603 and RMC 136a.
R136a1, found in the RMC 136a cluster, is 10 million times brighter than the sun and is the heaviest star ever found, Crowther said Wednesday, with a mass that is roughly 265 times more than the sun. It was born even heavier, with a solar mass of 320. Astronomers previously thought 150 to be the upper limit.
Several of the stars studied had surface temperatures of 40,000 degrees, more than seven times hotter than the sun.
R136a1 is rare and resides in another galaxy called the Large Magellanic Cloud. Its home is more than 165,000 light years away from Earth's Milky Way galaxy. As such, said Crowther, it is not visible to the naked eye, nor with a rooftop telescope.
"Owing to the rarity of these monsters, I think it is unlikely that this new record will be broken any time soon," Crowther said.
Crowther's team used the sophisticated infrared equipment on the Very Large Telescope in a European Southern Observatory facility in Chile as well as data collected from the Hubble Space Telescope to detect the colossal star. The telescope is considered the world's "biggest eye on the sky" and is 8 meters (26 feet) in diameter.
The research was published in the current issue of the British scientific journal The Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
"Unlike people, these kind of stars are massive when they are babies," Crowther told CNN. "They lose weight as they get older."
At over a million years old, the star is already middle-aged, Crowther said, and could easily be a poster child for WeightWatchers, having shed a fifth of its initial mass over time because of powerful winds.
In another million years -- a brief life span compared to the sun's 5 billion years of existence -- the giant star will probably explode as a supernova. It won't be noticeable on Earth because it's so far away.
Crowther, excited about the new find, had to find simple terminology to describe it to his 6-year-old son Billy. Billy, in turn, wanted dad to name the monster star after him.
That might have sounded a whole lot better than R136a1, but nonetheless, a star is born.

Is this like discovering a very large mountain?

micca micca merged.

I think we are just going to find more and more things like this and we'll find them exponentially. Within 5 years I would bet we find things that defy description esp. with the new satellites launching within that time.

Originally Posted by short faced bear

I think we are just going to find more and more things like this and we'll find them exponentially. Within 5 years I would bet we find things that defy description esp. with the new satellites launching within that time.

Not if they find us first.

Unbound Hypervelocity Star (Photo)
by Jack Ryan




(Photo)Unbound Hypervelocity Star. The Milky Way has lost a star. NASA said today that the new Hubble Space Telescope revealed a large blue star going 1.6 million mph out of the Milky Way galaxy. The star's name is HE 0437-5439. NASA said that the Hubble observations confirmed that the super-fast star hails from the center of the Milky Way. According to MSN, "Astronomers think the star is a survivor from a triple-star system that traveled through the bustling center of our Milky Way galaxy 100 million years ago, but made the perilous mistake of wandering too close to the galaxy's giant black hole, which captured one of the stars and flung the other two out of the Milky Way. The two ejected stars then merged to form a super-hot, blue star."

Generally stars going this fast create what looks like a brilliant blue arrowhead. The star's gases flow in opposite direction of the star's movement direction.
NASA scientists are unsure of what caused the star to get up to 1.6 million mph. Astronomer Warren Brown suggests that something "exotic" has to happen first. Scientists have suggested a Black Hole theory.
Scientists hope that super-fast stars like the HE 0437-5439 can reveal the shape of the dark matter distribution on the edges of our galaxy.
For more info on the super-fast star - Click Here

Sign it as a CB and convert it to a WR.

Three Bright Planets Visible in Night Sky Triangle

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Joe Rao
SPACE.com Skywatching Columnist
SPACE.com joe Rao
space.com Skywatching Columnist
space.com – 2 hrs 18 mins ago
A spectacular gathering of three of the brightest planets will be the chief celestial attraction in the evening sky during the next few days. Anyone with a clear and unobstructed view of the west-northwest horizon will be able to Venus, Mars and Saturn in a single glance.
These three planets are destined to crowd into a relatively small area of the sky, making for a very distinctive and eye-catching formation that is sure to thrill most sky watchers.
From my own personal viewpoint, I have been referring to this gathering as "The Celestial Summit Meeting" to both members of my family and close friends.
This graphic shows where to look to spot the planetary triangle on Aug. 5.
Planetary travels
A wide variety of different conjunctions and configurations involving the planets typically occur during the course of any given year. It is rather unusual, however, when three or more bright planets appear to reside in the same small area of the sky.
From our Earthly vantage point, we can readily observe Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn with our unaided eyes as they revolve around the sun. [Venus photos from around the world.]
Each of these planets appears to move against the starry background at their own speeds and along their own tracks. It is obvious that since they are constantly moving at different speed, the positions of all five planets at any particular time are unique to that particular moment.
All of the naked eye planets – and the moon as well – closely follow an imaginary line in the sky called the ecliptic. The ecliptic is also the apparent path that the Sun appears to take through the sky as a result of the Earth's revolution around it.
Planet motion in the solar system
Technically, the ecliptic represents the extension or projection of the plane of the Earth's orbit out towards the sky. But since the moon and planets move in orbits, whose planes do not differ greatly from that of the Earth's orbit, these bodies, when visible in our sky, always stay relatively close to the ecliptic line.
Twelve of the constellations through which the ecliptic passes from the Zodiac; their names which can be readily identified on standard star charts, are familiar to millions of horoscope users who would be hard pressed to find them in the actual sky.
Ancient man probably took note of the fact that the planets – themselves resembling bright stars – had the freedom to wander in the heavens, while the other "fixed" stars remained rooted in their positions.
This ability to move seemed to have an almost magical, god-like quality. And evidence that the planets came to be associated with the gods, lies in their very names, which represent ancient deities.
The sky watchers of thousands of years ago must have deduced that if the movements of the planets had any significance at all, it must be to inform those who could read celestial signs of what the fates held in store.
Indeed, even to this day, there are those who firmly believe that the changing positions of the sun, moon and planets can have a decided effect on the destinies of individuals and nations on the Earth.
Interestingly, 10 years ago in May 2000, and again two years later in May 2002, several of the planets gathered together in the western twilight sky. In their advance – especially in 2000 and on much lesser scale in 2002 – there were numerous astrological predictions of earthquakes, floods, wars and other disasters. But despite all the ballyhoo, absolutely nothing happened.
When and Where to Look
So far as viewing this upcoming planet cluster, the only drawback for prospective observers will be that these three planets will be visible for at best for only about 60 to 90 minutes after sundown before they start getting too low to the horizon to be readily observable.
Astronomers measure the brightness of objects in the sky using a standard yardstick called magnitude. The lower the number, the brighter the object, with the brightest stars in the sky categorized as either a zero or first magnitude.
So while Venus (dazzling at magnitude - 4.3) should be more than bright enough to see with the unaided eye in the fading twilight glow, Saturn (magnitude +1.1) and Mars (magnitude +1.4) will likely be a bit more difficult. Indeed, although Saturn and Mars are of first magnitude, they appear only about 1/150th as bright as Venus!
Therefore, to avoid being disappointed, I would strongly suggest also using binoculars to scan the west-southwest sky for the three planets, especially if it is rather hazy (as midsummer evenings often tend to be).
Currently, Mars and Saturn as poised above and to the left of Venus. In fact, on the evening of July 31, Mars and Saturn were in conjunction, with the yellow-orange Mars passing less than two degrees to the lower left of Saturn.
Pinnacle: Aug. 7 and 8
A planet trio is defined as when three planets fit within a circle measuring 5 degrees.
And on the evenings of Aug. 7-8,Venus, Saturn, and Mars will fit inside a 5-degree circle. Your clinched fist held at arm's length, for instance, is equal to roughly 10 degrees; the pointer stars at the end of the bowl of the Big Dipper are separated by just over 5 degrees).
The angular diameter of the smallest circle containing these planets will be attained at 3 a.m. EDT on Aug. 8 (4.8-degrees), unfortunately when the planets will be below the horizon for North Americans.
But on both evenings all three planets should be readily visible, standing roughly 15 degrees above the western horizon about a half-hour after sunset and not setting until more than an hour later. And their rapidly changing night-to-night positions relative to one another leading up to these evenings should be most fascinating to watch.
Finally, on the evenings of Aug. 12-13 a skinny crescent moon will slide well below and to the left (to the south and east) of the three planets marking the end of the summit meeting.
Truly, that will be the cherry on this celestial sundae!

Get the most out of the meteor show

Doug Murray / Reuters file
A Perseid meteor streaks toward the horizon in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., on Aug. 12, 2008. August's annual meteor shower is shaping up as a particularly good show this year.

Alan Boyle writes:This year's Perseid meteor shower is shaping up as a beaut. The big night is next Thursday, but anytime now is a great time for skywatching - not only to see shooting stars, but to see the planets as well.
The Perseids are among the year's best-known meteor showers, especially for mid-northern latitudes. Here's why: The show begins ramping up in late July and hits its peak around Aug. 12-13, when it's usually pleasant to hang around outdoors in the northern hemisphere. Perseid meteors appear to radiate from the constellation Perseus, which is high up in the sky at about 3:30 a.m. in northern latitudes - prime time for meteor watching.
But the big attraction comes down to how many shooting stars you can see: During this time of year, Earth plows through the trails of space grit that have been laid down by Comet Swift-Tuttle as it makes its 130-year orbit around the sun. When those particles of grit zip through the upper atmosphere, they heat up and create those bright streaks we all know and love.
Fortunately for meteor-watchers, there's a lot of grit out there.
"The whole shower, we think, is about 160,000 years old," Peter Jenniskens, a meteor astronomer at the California-based SETI Institute, told me today. "The bulk of the shower you see is 5,000 years old."
Skywatchers have tracked the Perseids for centuries. In some circles, the meteors are known as "the Tears of St. Lawrence," because the show reaches its peak around Aug. 10 - the feast day of St. Lawrence, a third-century Christian martyr. It wasn't until 1867 that scientists figured out that a comet was behind the meteoric display.
The sky conditions are nearly ideal for this year's show, because the moon will be just a few days past its new phase. When the moon is full, its glare overwhelms the meteor flashes in the night sky, making viewing problematic. But this year's crescent moon will be far below the horizon by midnight, when the meteor show enters prime time.
You'll be good to go as long as you can get away from cloudy skies and the glare of city lights. Find an open area that gives you as wide a view of the sky as possible. Lie back on a blanket or chaise lounge, and give your eyes time to get accustomed to the darkness. You might want to bring along something warm to drink, to help you stay awake. It's a lot more fun if you go out with a group. If you're on your own, you can plug in to some tunes or an audiobook as you gaze into the night. But you may want to take in the silence instead: Some people swear they can hear the sounds of meteors zooming past.
NASA
Perseid meteors appear to emanate from a point in the constellation Perseus, as shown in this graphic depicting the northeastern sky at around midnight. Although the meteors can appear in any part of the sky, their tails can be traced back to that point..

If viewing conditions are absolutely perfect, you could see a meteor every minute at the height of the shower, which generally comes around 3:30 to 5:30 a.m., depending on your latitude. Is that past your bedtime? Don't sweat it; there's actually a lot to be said for watching the skies in the early evening. During that time frame, the Perseid meteors streak at a narrow angle through the atmosphere. "You don't get as many meteors, but you get these long streaks - very nice!" Jenniskens said.
Starry Night Software via Space.com
A planetary triangle in western skies after sunset..

This year, early evening is also prime time for seeing a pretty grouping of planets: Venus, Mars and Saturn can be identified as the sparkling points of a triangle in western skies between sunset and about 10 p.m. local time. Around midnight, bright Jupiter rises in the east and starts making its way toward the zenith. And in the wee hours of the morning, North Americans can spot the International Space Station's stately procession across the sky. (Check out Heavens-Above for planetary positions and NASA's satellite sighting website for the space station's schedule.)
Jenniskens said Earth is due to pass directly through a grit trail laid down by Swift-Tuttle in the year 1479 at 16:49 GMT Aug. 12. That doesn't do North American observers any good, because it's daylight at that time. But it does mean observers in, say, Hawaii or Japan could see twice as many meteors as they would under normal conditions.
If Thursday night doesn't work for you, that's OK. The Perseids are known for having a gradual ramp-up and fade-out, so there's the potential for seeing a good show anytime in the next couple of weeks. In fact, NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center reports that a dramatic Perseid fireball, six times as bright as Venus, was sighted over Arkansas on Tuesday.
"It's a very good start to this year's Perseid meteor shower," NASA's Janet Anderson writes. Amen to that!
Here are additional online resources that help you make the most of this prime skywatching season:

• The International Meteor Organization, which keeps track of shooting-star sightings, is already reporting that some observers have spotted as many as 30 meteors an hour.
• Meteorobs, an e-mail discussion forum for skywatchers, is beginning to buzz with Perseid news. Don't miss Robert Lunsford's outlook for the week ahead.
• The American Meteor Society has a meaty guide to the Perseids. Other viewing guides are available from Space.com, Sky & Telescope, Astronomy magazine, Universe Today, StarDate Online and EarthSky.
• NASA's Fluxtimator gets Jennisken's vote as the most useful Java-based tool for figuring out how many meteors you can see on which day. Be sure to fill out the form completely with the meteor shower ("7 Perseids"), your location, viewing conditions, date (make sure to select "2010") and time zone (DST or not?).
• The Clear Sky Chart shows you where the darkest, clearest skies can be found nearby.
• SpaceWeather.com and NASA Science News are providing updated information about the buildup to the Perseids, plus a Web page that lets you "listen" to the radio echoes created by passing meteors.
• MeteorWatch is a year-old website that lets you share Perseid sighting reports via Twitter.
• Top 10 tips for meteor watchers, written by yours truly during the 2007 Perseids.
• The science behind the meteor show: Interactive graphic explains the genesis of meteor showers.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39100951...de=1&gt1=43001