Posted on 10/12/2012 9:15:21 AM PDT by Squawk 8888
An intriguing spiral structure surrounding a pulsing red giant star may be offering a preview of how the sun will behave at the end of its life.
Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) in northern Chile, an international team of astronomers found the spiral structure, one never seen before, in the envelope of gas and dust around a red giant about 1,000 light-years from Earth and took a detailed three-dimensional reading of its composition.
The spiral is thought to be created from the gases being expelled by the dying red giant called R Sculptoris. The structure provides information about the velocity of the wind blowing off of R Sculptoris, revealing that the star has expelled three times as much mass as previously estimated.
"We can 'walk along' the spiral and use it as a clock to see what happened when," said Matthias Maercker, of Germany's University of Bonn.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
aka “a space cookie”
It appears to be spewing chunks..............
Six stars of the Northern Cross
In mourning for their sister’s loss
In a final flash of glory
Never more to grace the night
Thanks Squawk 8888, and good idea, an ‘extra, extra’ to APoD members. Of course, this shot may wind up as the APoD selection tomorrow for all we know. :’)
Is this going to happen to our sun next week? I have plans to make.
G_d playing “Star Castle”.
Just bring plenty of SPF 3,000,000,000 and you’ll be fine.
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