A place to share questions and comments about Science at ATA. In our monthly SINS (Science In the News) Students review a piece of media (newspaper, magazine, radio, T.V., Internet). Then share and discuss. Brief Synopses of our Labs will also be posted here. Feel free to comment! :-)
1 comment:
Scientists at the Calar Alto Observatory in Spain discovered two enormous stars locked in a very fast orbit that will ensure their destiny to become a behemoth star, in Andrew Fazekas’ article “Astronomers Spy Monster Star Merger on the Move” in National Geographic on December 9th, 2014. A decade ago, observers spotted a binary star cluster, however, they had no idea of the size and dangerous trajectory of these two giants. Since then, the stars, weighing 30 times the mass of our sun, have been growing closer and closer together. They are orbiting each other at a rate of one full turn every 1.2 days and are traveling at a speed of one million kilometers per hour. “That is so close and fast,” astronomers say, that “the merging of these two stars is almost guaranteed”.
When the stars come in contact, there will most likely be a large explosion that will pour radiation into the vicinity. However, since the star cluster is 13,000 light years away, the populous on earth should be okay, unless the event is even bigger than imagined, which is also quite possible.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/12/141209-starstruck-monster-star-merger-space-astronomy-science/
Post a Comment