NASA Finds Star With a Tail 233
Andrew Stellman writes "NASA astronomers held a press conference announcing that a new ultraviolet mosaic from NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer shows a speeding star named Mira that's leaving an enormous trail of "seeds" for new solar systems. Mira is traveling faster than a speeding bullet, and has a tail that's 13 light-years long and over 30,000 years old. The website has images and a replay of the teleconference."
You can't see the tail with your eyes (Score:4, Informative)
Read the article, bottom of the page: "Mira's tail is only visible in ultraviolet light, and does not show up in visible light."
Re:Dropping seeds all over the universe? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Faster than a speeding bullet? (Score:4, Informative)
You know the speed that pressure changes can propogate through a fluid (such as the not-quite-vacuum intertelar medium around the star). That speed in which there's a change in the physics due to the formation of a shock wave (because the object is traveling faster than the pressure shift that "tells" the "upstream" fluid that the object is there).
100km/s or there abouts - depends on the local density of the interstellar medium.
Re:The NASA folks must have been watching bad film (Score:5, Informative)
According to the script, they (Lucas) knew it and knew Solo was wrong. From http://www.blueharvest.net/scoops/anh-script.shtm
HAN: Fast ship? You've never heard of the Millennium Falcon?
BEN: Should I have?
HAN: It's the ship that made the Kessel run in less than twelve
parsecs!
Ben reacts to Solo's stupid attempt to impress them with
obvious misinformation.
Emphasis added...
-Trillian
Re:Faster than a speeding bullet? (Score:3, Informative)
1 light year = 9.4605284 × 10^15 meters.
so 103461596675415.57305336832895888, or one hundred three trillion, four hundred sixty-one billion, five hundred ninety-six million, six hundred seventy-five thousand, four hundred fifteen-ish football fields per light year.
which makes 13 light years 1345000756780402.4496937882764654, or one quadrillion, three hundred forty-five trillion, seven hundred fifty-six million, seven hundred eighty thousand, four hundred two-ish football fields.
wow, slow night.
Re:Faster than a speeding bullet? (Score:3, Informative)
For Soccer Fields:
Fifa approvable fields must be between 100m and 110m in length.
so from 1229868692000000 to 1118062447272727.27, or one quadrillion, two hundred twenty-nine trillion, eight hundred sixty-eight billion, six hundred ninety-two million to one quadrillion, one hundred eighteen trillion, sixty-two billion, four hundred forty-seven million, two hundred seventy-two thousand, seven hundred twenty-seven fifa approved soccer fields.
reaalllly slow night.
Re:Dropping seeds all over the universe? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Dropping seeds all over the universe? (Score:4, Informative)
Kirk's Bedpost Notches [memory-alpha.org]
In my defense, there were a couple that even I couldn't remember.
Re:Dropping seeds all over the universe? (Score:3, Informative)
Roddenberry deliberately pushed the envelope whereever he could. Sulu, Chekov on the bridge, etc. The only way a woman could get on was to be married or be mistress to him - Nurse Chapel was his wife, Uhura was his mistress and so was the (can't remember her name and my own videos of the classic series are not handy) blonde babe ensign who was in Charley, etc.
Type M-x praise-be-unto-xemacs into your nearest sound-enabled XEmacs window. That (fair use!) snippet is from the episode where Kirk fathered a child with the American Indian-like people.
How is he fathering children if he isn't spreading his seed all over the galaxy?
Re:Dropping seeds all over the universe? (Score:1, Informative)
Perhaps you're thinking of another ST book, but your comment (and attributing it to Roddenberry) definitely skews this discussion inaccurately. Sorry!
Re:Dropping seeds all over the universe? (Score:3, Informative)
*Editor's note: The human concept of friend is most nearly duplicated in Vulcan thought by the term t'hy'la, which can also mean brother and lover. Spock's recollection (from which this chapter has drawn) is that it was a most difficult moment for him since he did indeed consider Kirk to have become his brother. However, because t'hy'la can be used to mean lover, and since Kirk's and Spock's friendship was unusually close, this has led to some speculation over whether they had actually indeed become lovers. At our requrest, Admiral Kirk supplied the following comment on this subject:
"I was never aware of this lovers rumor, although I have been told that Spock encountered it several times. Apparently he had always dismissed it with his characteristic lifting of his right eyebrow which usually connoted some combination of surprise, disbelief, and/or annoyance. As for myself, although I have no moral or other objections to physical love in any of its many Earthly, alien, and mixed forms, I have always found my best gratification in that creature woman. Also, I would dislike being thought of as so foolish that I would select a lover partner who came into sexual heat only once every seven years."
Re:The NASA folks must have been watching bad film (Score:1, Informative)
The story on Nature.com (Score:3, Informative)