Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Aging Star System Leaves Strange Death Spiral

Posted by Soulskill on from the tox-utaht-spotted dept.

jamie tips a post at Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy blog about an extremely unusual astronomical phenomenon originating from a binary system about 3000 light years away. Quoting: "The name of this thing is AFGL 3068. It's been known as a bright infrared source for some time, but images just showed it as a dot. This Hubble image using the Advanced Camera for Surveys reveals an intricate, delicate and exceedingly faint spiral pattern. ... Red giants tend to blow a lot of their outer layers into space in an expanding spherical wind; think of it as a super-solar wind. The star surrounds itself with a cloud of this material, essentially enclosing it in a cocoon. In general the material isn't all that thick, but in some of these stars there is an overabundance of carbon in the outer layers which gets carried along in these winds. ... AFGL 3068 is a carbon star and most likely evolved just like this, but with a difference: it's a binary. As the two stars swing around each other, the wind from the carbon star doesn't expand in a sphere. Instead, we see a spiral pattern as the material expands."

3 of 79 comments (clear)

  1. Second post as well?! by CarpetShark · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    For god's sake post something people, I'm getting lonely with this first post and second post crap ;)

  2. Stand by for an IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    the Troll High Council has DISBANDED.
    Effective Sep 05 The THC is no more.

    1. Re:Stand by for an IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT by Ethanol-fueled · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Because I sued 'em for copyright infringement.

      THC, the Tinfoil Hat Crew, is the name of my music project painstakingly developed in 2005 with copious amounts of gin and chronic masturbation.

      p.s. freelance trolls are alive and well.