“The thing is, when you see your old friends, you come face to face with yourself. I run into someone I’ve known for 40 or 50 years, and they’re old. And I suddenly realize I’m old. It comes as an enormous shock to me. ” –Polly Bergen
It isn’t just humans that age rapidly, but stars as well. For the hottest, brightest stars, the aging process occurs the most quickly, as the most massive stars live only a few million years at most before going supernova. Such is the fate of the giant O-class star, ζ Ophiuchi, located just 370 light years away.
Image credit: E. Siegel, created with the free software Stellarium at http://stellarium.org/.
Unlike most stars this massive, however, it isn’t found in a newborn cluster of stars, but rather hurtles through the interstellar medium at over 24 km/s (or nearly the speed of the Earth around the Sun), breaking the sound barrier and causing a massive bow shock in the direction of its travel!
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA, WISE spacecraft, via http://ift.tt/1Nlih5o.
Come get the scoop on this fantastic star and this spectacular phenomenon on today’s Mostly Mute Monday.
from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1NligON
“The thing is, when you see your old friends, you come face to face with yourself. I run into someone I’ve known for 40 or 50 years, and they’re old. And I suddenly realize I’m old. It comes as an enormous shock to me. ” –Polly Bergen
It isn’t just humans that age rapidly, but stars as well. For the hottest, brightest stars, the aging process occurs the most quickly, as the most massive stars live only a few million years at most before going supernova. Such is the fate of the giant O-class star, ζ Ophiuchi, located just 370 light years away.
Image credit: E. Siegel, created with the free software Stellarium at http://stellarium.org/.
Unlike most stars this massive, however, it isn’t found in a newborn cluster of stars, but rather hurtles through the interstellar medium at over 24 km/s (or nearly the speed of the Earth around the Sun), breaking the sound barrier and causing a massive bow shock in the direction of its travel!
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA, WISE spacecraft, via http://ift.tt/1Nlih5o.
Come get the scoop on this fantastic star and this spectacular phenomenon on today’s Mostly Mute Monday.
from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1NligON
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