Dying Star Mimics Our Sun's Death 149
Posted
by
kdawson
from the telltale-heart dept.
from the telltale-heart dept.
coondoggie writes "In about 5 billion years, our Sun will face a nasty death. Scientists with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics this week released dramatic new pictures of a dying star much like the Sun, about 550 light-years from Earth. According to the researchers, Chi Cygni has swollen in size to become a red giant star so large that if it were in our solar system it would swallow every planet out to Mars and cook the asteroid belt. The star has started to pulse dramatically, beating like a giant heart with a period of 408 days." The research team produced a video of the pulsating star, using infrared images captured via very long baseline interferometry.
Stop mimicking me! (Score:3, Funny)
Mom, he won't stop saying whatever I say!
Re:Do we care? (Score:0, Funny)
Life has been around in one form or another for 6,000 years
FTFY
global warming (Score:3, Funny)
So in about 5 billion years we won't hear all that global warming talk anymore?
Great!
Re:Stop mimicking me! (Score:5, Funny)
Well, sun, you're so bright, take care of it yourself.
Comforting thoughts (Score:3, Funny)
It's alright. The Yellowstone Caldera will blow up long before then and kill us all. So we won't be around to face the heat death of the Sun.
It is good to know these things.
From TFS (Score:4, Funny)
beating like a giant heart with a period
What a bloody mess.
I panicked (Score:2, Funny)
I panicked for a moment - I thought it said five million.
Am I the only one (Score:3, Funny)
Porn star? (Score:3, Funny)
New close-up photos of the surface of this distant star show its throbbing motions in unprecedented detail.
Rule 34, baby!!
Re:Older than dirt (Score:1, Funny)
You should look at a computer and see the thread of execution hopping between kernel routines and pausing at mutexes. You should see the electrons whooshing through the silicon, underneath an overhanging crystalline gate electrode. You should feel the electric field sucking at you: it's almost strong enough to rip electrons out of the SiO2 dielectric. And back up at higher level, those spin locks should be like an amusement park ride: puke your guts out if you go around in one for more than a few microseconds. :)
You might want to stop tripping acid when you use your computer...
Re:Do we care? (Score:3, Funny)
When Jesus comes back it will rock, I hope to get a ride off the planet if I am not raptured with an alien, "One of God's side projects."