Eta Car: 3D Model of the Most Dangerous Star Known

What's the most dangerous star near earth? Many believe it's Eta Carinae, a binary star system about 100 times the mass of the Sun, just 10,000 light years from earth. Eta Carinae is a ticking time bomb, set to explode as a supernova in only a few million years, when it may bathe the earth in dangerous gamma rays. The star suffered a notorious outburst in the 1840s when it became the brightest star in the southern sky, only to fade to obscurity within decades. The star was not destroyed, but lies hidden behind a thick, expanding, double-lobed structure called the Homunculus which now surrounds the binary. Studies of this ejecta provide forensic clues about the explosion. Using observations from NASA satellites we can now visualize the 3D distribution of the shrapnel, all the way from the infrared, through optical and UV, to the outermost shell of million-degree material, visible only in X-rays.

from NASA https://ift.tt/jild5xR

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A Spiral Aurora over Iceland

What's happened to the sky? Aurora ! Captured in 2015, this aurora was noted by Iceland ers for its great brightness and quick development. The aurora resulted from a solar storm, with high energy particles bursting out from the Sun and through a crack in Earth's protective magnetosphere a few days later. Although a spiral pattern can be discerned, creative human s might imagine the complex glow as an atmospheric apparition of any number of common icons . In the foreground of the featured image is the Ã–lfusÃ¡ River while the lights illuminate a bridge in Selfoss City . Just beyond the low clouds is a nearly full Moon. The liveliness of the Sun -- and likely the resulting auroras on Earth -- is slowly increasing as the Sun emerges from a Solar minimum , a historically quiet period in its 11-year cycle. from NASA https://ift.tt/2XgnyIE

NGC 2419: Intergalactic Wanderer

Stars of the globular cluster NGC 2419 are packed into this Hubble Space Telescope field of view toward the mostly stealthy constellation Lynx . The two brighter spiky stars near the edge of the frame are within our own galaxy. NGC 2419 itself is remote though, some 300,000 light-years away. In comparison, the Milky Way's satellite galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud , is only about 160,000 light-years distant. Roughly similar to other large globular star clusters like Omega Centauri , NGC 2419 is intrinsically bright, but appears faint because it is so far away. Its extreme distance makes it difficult to study and compare its properties with other globular clusters that roam the halo of our Milky Way galaxy. Sometimes called "the Intergalactic Wanderer", NGC 2419 really does seem to have come from beyond the Milky Way. Measurements of the cluster's motion through space suggest it once belonged to the Sagittarius dwarf spheroidal galaxy , another small satellite...

SuperCam Target on Maaz

What's the sound of one laser zapping? There's no need to consult a Zen master to find out, just listen to the first acoustic recording of laser shots on Mars . On Mars Rover Perseverance mission sol 12 (March 2, 2021) the SuperCam instrument atop the rover's mast zapped a rock dubbed Ma'az 30 times from a range of about 3.1 meters. Its microphone recorded the soft staccato popping sounds of the rapid series of SuperCam laser zaps. Shockwaves created in the thin Martian atmosphere as bits of rock are vaporized by the laser shots make the popping sounds, sounds that offer clues to the physical structure of the target. This SuperCam close-up of the Ma'az target region is 6 centimeters (2.3 inches) across. Ma'az means Mars in the Navajo language . from NASA https://ift.tt/qUSdeZl

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