what would it be like to live on a
planet traveling around a star so huge
that in comparison to it our sun looks
like a tiny Speck of dust well you could
find it out if you manag to visit a
planet orbiting
wg64 it's a red super giant an enormous
star dwelling in the large melanic Cloud
which is a satellite galaxy located not
too far away from our home Milky Way
galaxy red super Giants in the large and
small melanic clouds provide an
excellent opportunity to observationally
test the current Stellar Evolution
theory for massive
stars
wg64 is likely the largest star we have
found so far it's a real heavyweight
emitting an incredibly bright light to
understand the sheer size of this Mega
star better let's put it into
perspective compared to our star the
radius of woh g64 is around 1,500
40 times bigger in other words it's like
comparing a tiny grain of sand to a
basketball if we placed double g64 at
the center of the solar system the
surface of this star would extend past
the orbit of Jupiter swallowing up
Mercury Venus Earth Mars and Jupiter
itself you see the average radius of
Jupiter's orbit is around 1,000 times
the radius of the Sun as for Saturn the
radius of its orbit is around 2,000
times time the radius of the
Sun that's why W g64 with its average
radius being 1,500 time the radius of
the Sun fits right in between oh and if
you spread out the Stars dust envelope
it would cover a distance of about one
light year or 5.88 trillion
miles the star is not only ginormous but
also immensely bright in fact it's one
of the most luminous stars we know of
lum Luminosity is the total amount of
energy a star emits per unit of time and
the light coming from woh g64 is around
282,000 times brighter than the light
from our sun but perhaps one of the most
amazing features of
wg64 is the dust envelope surrounding it
in 2007 astronomers with the help of the
very large telescope discovered that woh
G6 4 was surrounded by a Taurus shaped
cloud it's so thick that to some extent
it obscures the
star the dust envelope is made up of the
material the star has expelled and it
contains between 3 to n times the mass
of the sun the star we're talking about
was discovered in the 1970s by bank
westerland olander and Hayden that's
where the W in the name of the star
comes from it's an abbreviation made up
of the first letters of the the
discoverer names by the way westerland
also discovered another remarkable red
super giant westerland 126 it was
spotted in a massive star cluster called
westerland 1 in the constellation of ARA
but back to
wg64 scientists have noted that this
star lies very close to or even beyond
the Hayashi limit it is a theoretical
constraint upon the maximum radius of a
star for a given Mass a condition where
the inward force of gravity is matched
by the outward pressure of the gas by
now the star
wg64 has reached such an evolved state
that it can no longer hold on to its
atmosphere because of super low density
High radiation pressure and relatively
opaque products of thermonuclear Fusion
that's why its average mass loss is
among the highest known to us so far
it's unusually high even for a red super
giant
wg64 also shows an unexpected spectrum
of nebular emission
the hot gas is rich in nitrogen and has
a radial velocity more positive than
that of the star which is quite an
unusual phenomenon the star might have a
potential companion an ootype main
sequence star if it turns out to be true
then g64 will be classified as a binary
star at the same time so far there have
been no confirmations of this Theory
partly because the intervening dust
clouds make the examination of the star
very difficult ult in any case U g64 is
absolutely fascinating not only because
of its huge size but also because of its
unbelievable luminosity and mysterious
dust envelope it's a great example of
how unexpected and amazing our universe
can
get besides such outstanding large stars
are undoubtedly an important
astronomical observation the results of
studies of such objects correct the
restrictions on the properties of star
within the framework of modern models
for testing the applicability of models
the exceptions to the rules are most
valuable buckle up fellow space
enthusiasts because we're about to
uncover the celestial secrets that have
been unveiled this
year from giant stars to organic
molecules this year is going great for
astronomers so let's catch up on all the
excitement you might have missed in
2023 first of all we've discovered some
real astral monsters imagine looking up
at the night sky and seeing stars that
are not just big but absolutely
enormous scientists have been using a
special telescope called the James web
Space Telescope to explore the early
days of the
universe and during their Adventure
scientists stumbled upon ancient stars
that are 10,000 times bigger than our
son Yes you heard it right 10,000
times these Giants of the Stellar world
were some of the very first stars ever
to form in the universe billions of
years
ago imagine a globular cluster as a
massive Cosmic crew where each group
consists of a whopping 100,000 to 1
million members these clusters are like
giant family gatherings with all the
stars being born around the same
time but what makes these newly
discovered monsters so special well
their cores or their Central parts are
way hotter than what we see in Stars
today scientists think that this intense
heat might be due to a lot of hydrogen
burning at really high temperatures it's
like they're having a galactic Barbecue
Party something fascinating happens in
these globular clusters the smaller
Stars crash into the super massive ones
and gain extra energy like a power
up but here's the twist most of these
clusters are now getting old and the
super massive stars disappear he a long
time ago we can only see hints of their
existence in the Clusters we observe
today scientists study them by just the
mysterious traces of their grand
presence the discovery of these monster
stars is incredibly important for our
understanding of the universe if
scientists can gather more evidence to
confirm their existence it would be a
major breakthrough it would help us
learn more about globular clusters and
how super massive stars form in
general but that was only the first
fascinating discovery of
2023 although the next one is kind of
sad you know those beautiful rings that
make Saturn look so fancy well guess
what they might disappear in the not so
distant future astronomically
speaking NASA's Cassini Mission which
explored Saturn from 2004 to 2017
gathered some fascinating data about the
Rings during cassini's Grand Finale when
it did some cool Maneuvers between
Saturn scientists noticed something
surprising the Rings were losing a lot
of mass every second tons of it that
means This Magnificent Halo will only
stick around for a few hundred million
more years at
most that may seem like a long time for
humans but in the grand scheme of the
universe it's just a blink of an
eye the important thing is that we've
learned that huge Rings like Saturn's
don't last forever they eventually fade
away oh well at least you and I
personally won't catch this
moment scientists have a fun theory
about what will happen when Saturn's
rings disappear they think that the
other ice and gas giants in our solar
system like Uranus and Jupiter might
have once had massive rings too but over
time those Rings wore down and became
more like the thin wispy bands of
asteroids like what Uranus has
now Saturn's rings are mostly made of
ice but they also have a sprinkling of
Rocky dust
dust this dust comes from asteroids and
teeny tiny meteoroids crashing into the
celestial objects and breaking
apart it's like a snowstorm of icy
particles and space
debris the research also revealed that
Saturn's rings appeared long after the
planet itself
formed they were still forming when
dinosaurs roamed the
Earth so in terms of astronomical age
they're actually quite Young only a few
hundred million years
old this discovery has got scientists
all excited because it means something
dramatic happened in Saturn's past to
create this stunning icy disc but this
is a mystery waiting to be
solved scientists want to figure out
what exactly caused the Rings to form
and why they have such a breathtaking
structure let's hope they'll figure it
out but moving on to something more
optimistic we have another exciting
space news recently scientists have been
studying one of the most distant
galaxies in the universe and they found
something
amazing organic
molecules the Galaxy in question has a
long name spt 041 847 it's over 12
billion light years away from our little
blue planet can you even imagine that
distance it's the farthest Galaxy ever
known where complex organic molecules
have been
found that's why looking at this galaxy
is like looking at something from when
the universe was just a
baby we have no idea what this galaxy
looks like now the light that has
reached us is what it looked like when
the universe was only 1.5 billion years
old imagine being able to see things
from so far in the
past so what they found is something
with a very complicated name a
polycyclic aromatic hyd Hy carbon
molecule or simply pH molecule you might
be wondering what in the world is that
well guess what you can actually find
these molecules right here on our planet
they can be in things like the smoke
from car engines or even forest
fires phah molecules are made up of
chains of carbon atoms and here's the
super cool part they're considered the
basic building blocks for
Life imagine that life's building blocks
those tiny carbon chains being
discovered in a galaxy that's so far
away that's like finding a needle in a
haystack they also found out that gas
floating around in that Galaxy is filled
with heavy
elements that's a big deal because it
suggests that many stars have come and
gone there creating all these amazing
elements this means that this galaxy can
be potentially rich in many other
elements
too this discovery opens up a world of
possibil abilities and raises so many
exciting questions how did these
molecules form in a galaxy so
distant and since we're looking into the
past what could have happened to these
organic molecules during this time could
they have evolved into
life we're only scratching the surface
of the incredible things waiting to be
uncovered by the way if it's so far how
did scientists even manage to discover
something like that
well they had the instrument called the
James web Space
Telescope this fancy telescope was
recently launched and has superpowers
when it comes to observing the
universe so when the scientists were
studying this far away Galaxy they had a
little problem the light coming from
Those Distant objects was so faint that
it was hard to see or
detect but guess what they had a
brilliant idea to solve this they used
something called gravitational lensing
which is like a special power of
Nature's magnifying
glass imagine two galaxies lining up
perfectly just like in a photo shoot the
light from the farway Galaxy the
background one travels towards us but on
its Journey it passes through the
foreground Galaxy which is like a giant
space
lens and guess what the foreground
Galaxy's gravity bends the light just
like a magnifying glass making it bigger
and brighter it's like having a cosmic
zoom lens for our
telescopes this bending of light creates
a super cool shape called an Einstein
ring it's like a Halo or a ring of light
surrounding the foreground Galaxy
basically a Nature's way of showing off
its magical
powers with gravitational lensing and
these beautiful Einstein
Rings scientists can see distant objects
more clearly and learn amazing things
about the
universe and thanks to all that they
managed to uncover the hidden chemical
interactions from the early
galaxies isn't that
incredible the scientists are Beyond
excited about this discovery they never
expected to find such complex organic
molecules in a galaxy that's incredibly
distant who knows maybe this is just the
beginning of a thrilling Cosmic
Journey so keep your eyes on the Stars
fellow Space Explorers the universe is
full of surprises and who knows what
other mind-blowing discoveries await us
out there let's hope we'll learn even
more in the
future stargazers come up here cuz I
have exciting news astronomers have just
completed the full mapping of two pairs
of stars outside our miliky way Galaxy
that are chowing down on their Stellar
neighbors not only does it give us a
better understanding of stars in general
but it can also help us measure distance
in the night
sky did you know that more than half of
the stars in our Milky Way are paired
and while it's unlikely that other
galaxies have a significant number of
binary Stars too they're usually too
faint to see but these so-called
symbiotic Stars where one star consumes
the other are extremely bright and
easier to observe and according to
scientists measuring the orbits of these
simp symbiotic star systems is an
essential step towards learning whether
other galaxies create binary stars like
those in our Milky
Way now let's get down to the
nitty-gritty a pair of stars may be born
together but do to their masses they age
differently the more massive One Burns
through its material faster reaching the
end of its lifetime first and leaves
behind a compact white dwarf white
dwarfs are small and dim but can pack
the mass of the Sun into an object the
size of Earth if close enough their
gravity can pull material from their
companion creating a signal that
astronomers can identify from far
away Draco C1 and Lyn 358 are the
symbiotic stars that have been fully
mapped the stars in Draco C1 take
roughly three Earth years to orbit one
another while ly 358 component take just
over two these are the First full
orbital measurements of any symbiotic
star system outside the Milky Way the
new measurements will help astronomers
better understand star formations in
other
galaxies in some symbiotic Stars the
white dwarf can slurp enough material
from its companion that it explodes in a
supernova these Supernova are incredibly
bright and can be seen across the
universe
they all start out with the same
brightness for a nearby Observer making
them like a sort of standard candle for
measuring the universe while Draco C1
and Lin 358 are unlikely to explode as
Supernova anytime soon understanding how
they work can provide us with a better
understanding of how these standard
candles
evolve if you're here to complete your
knowledge of weird stars in the universe
don't be disappointed we're not finished
just yet have you ever wondered about
the biggest stars in the
universe scientists have recently
discovered a gigantic star called UI
scoote this bad boy is located about
9,500 light years away from Earth and is
truly out of this world it's about 1,700
times larger than our sun which means if
it were in our solar system it would
reach past Jupiter's orbit there's more
UI scutty isn't just massive it's also
super bright it's what scientists call a
red super giant and it shines with a
brightness of about 340,000 times that
of our sun if you're thinking about
getting a tan from this star think again
though it's way too far away for that
how does a star like u i Scotty even
form you might wonder well it starts out
like any other star a cloud of gas and
dust collapses under its gravity and
starts to heat up eventually the
temperature becomes hot enough in the
core of the cloud to ignite nuclear
fusion and A Star is Born but UI scutty
didn't stop there it kept devouring more
and more gas and dust growing larger and
larger this process continued until it
became the giant we know today as
fascinating as UI scutty is it's not the
only big star out there there are others
like VY Kanis Majoris which was once
thought to be the biggest star until UI
Scotty stole the show VY Kanis Majoris
is still a force to be reckoned with
though it's about 1,400 times larger
than our son and located about 5,000
Lighty years away from us but here's the
kicker stars like uy scutty and V Kanis
Majoris aren't even the biggest things
in the universe not by a long shot there
are objects called hyper Giants that
make these stars look like ants in
comparison one such hyper giant is
Stevenson 218 located about 20,000
Lighty years away it's about 2, 150
times larger than our sun and shines
with the brightness of 7 million Suns
and just when you thought things
couldn't get any crazier there's a
mysterious object called the Great
attractor that's pulling everything in
our local group of galaxies towards it
we don't know what it is or what's
causing it but one theory is that it's a
massive cluster of hyper Giants we'd be
minuscule in
comparison the next star is so metal
it's practically headbanging all the
time Jokes Aside scientists have
discovered a star that's called a heavy
metal subdwarf now that's a band name
it's a type of star that's serious heavy
metal this star has more metal in its
composition than any other star we've
seen before such stars are said to
contain metal elements like iron nickel
and chromium this heavy metal subdwarf
has about 10,000 times more iron than
our
sun in their Discovery astronomers used
a technique called spectroscopy which
involves analyzing the light that comes
from the Star to determine what elements
it's made of by looking at the spectrum
of light scientists were able to see
that this star had an unusual amount of
metal in its
composition there's more this heavy
metal subdwarf isn't just a regular star
with a lot of metal it's also really
weird in other ways for one thing it's
smaller and cooler than our sun and for
another it's really old we're talking
about a star that's been around for
almost as long as the universe itself
[Music]
what does this all mean well scientists
are hoping that by studying this heavy
metal subdwarf they can learn more about
the early Universe since this star is so
old that it was around when the universe
was just beginning to form it's seen a
lot of stuff by studying its composition
and characteristics scientists can get a
better understanding of what the
universe was like in its early
days this next star is one of the
coolest things in outer space her name
is Vega and it's one of the brightest
stars in the night sky some recognize it
as the shiny point of light in the
constellation Lyra and get this it's
only about 25 light years away from us
which in astronomical terms is
practically next
door scientists have been studying Vega
for a long time and they've learned some
pretty interesting things for starters
Vega is a young star only a few hundred
million years old old that might sound
like a long time but compared to our sun
which is around 4.6 billion years old
Vega is practically a newborn Vega is
also a very hot star with a surface
temperature of around 177,000 de F to
put that into perspective the surface of
our sun is only about 10,000 de F so if
you think it's hot outside today just be
glad you're not hanging out on
Vega another interesting thing thing
about this star is that it's surrounded
by a disc of dust and gas this disc is
called a debris disc because it's made
up of leftover material from when the
star formed scientists think that this
debris disc is similar to the one that
surrounded our solar system when it was
young Vega is also a source of cosmic
rays these rays are high energy
particles that zip around space at
incredible speeds they're made up of
protons electrons and other particles
and scientists aren't exactly sure where
they come from but they do know that
Vega is one of the places where cosmic
rays originate but wait there's more
Vega is also a famous star in pop
culture it's been used in a lot of
movies and books as a source of
inspiration mostly because of its
brightness and cool
features hop on board hurry we don't
have much time we're on a cosmic journey
to to find the biggest star in the
universe the first star we pass is our
own Sun by far not the biggest one out
there but it's still massive you could
fit 1 million Earths inside it that
means if you think of the sun like a
basketball Earth would be half the size
of a pencil eraser if we put all the
planets on one side of a scale and the
sun on the other the planets wouldn't
stand a chance the sun makes up
99.9% of all the mass in the entire
solar system mass is basically how much
stuff or matter something is made from
and it's what you can thank for stars
shining you see the more matter in a
star the thicker and hotter its core
becomes this starts a chain of chemical
reactions hydrogen atoms get smashed
into each other to form helium releasing
an incredible amount of energy that's
the Stars light and heat
so bigger Stars also equal brighter ones
but with all those reactions going on
this shortens a star's lifespan when it
starts to run out of fuel the star will
enter the giant phase it'll expand and
turn red which brings us back to the
task at hand the biggest star we'll find
is likely to be on the edge of its
[Music]
life switching on our hyper light
engines we soon arrive at the Lumen 16
system here we'll find one of the
smallest stars out there a brown dwarf
small here means about the size of
Jupiter but they're small for
stars Brown dwarfs are also called
failed stars because they don't have
enough mass for those chemical reactions
that means they're not as bright but
they're super dense all the matter in
them is packed together so tightly they
weigh 80 times more than Jupiter even
being the same size huh and if you think
that's something just look at a white
dwarf even more tightly packed this one
here is serious B it's also about the
size of Jupiter but ited weigh as much
as the sun it emits a dim white light
once it runs out of gas it'll turn red
and cool down now let's fly closer to
its giant neighbor Sirius a you easily
see this star from Earth no telescope
needed twice heavier and more than 1 and
1/2 times wider than our sun it's the
brightest star in our night sky now we
fly 550 light years away from Earth to
the constellation copia almost 100 years
ago a cosmic explosion happened here it
expanded the atmosphere of the star
gamma copia and some gases were thrown
into space after that it became the
brightest star in the constellation it's
10 times wider than our sun on to the
famous North Star funny enough different
stars have had this title over the years
and more will take it in the future
that's because Earth's pole star changes
every 26,000 years imagine our planet
like a spinning top the northern pole
will shift around in a little circle
pointing at different stars to the true
north the current one is a super giant
37 times wider and five times heavier
than our sun it's easy to find in the
night sky it's on the very tip of the
little Dipper's handle get ready now
we're setting off for the eye of the
storm the center of our Milky Way galaxy
to see the next star we need to switch
to infrared mode this pistol star is
hiding from us in space dust in just 20
seconds it emits as much light as our
home star does in an entire year and it
size is jaw-dropping it's 420 times
wider than the Sun but it's still not
the most luminous star known to humanity
that would be a blue super giant in the
constellation triangulum meet
b416 it's almost 10 million times
brighter than the sun but the brighter a
star the faster it burns up all its Fuel
and the shorter its life compared with a
red dwarf that barely glows and burns
fuel much more slowly its life will will
be hundreds of thousands of times
shorter 3,400 Lighty years from Earth
there's one of the rarest celestial
bodies in the universe it's a yellow
hyper giant called Ro copia among the
countless stars in our galaxy there are
only a couple dozen of these and even
though this star is extremely far away
from our planet you can still see it in
the sky without needing a telescope
that's because it's 300,000 times
brighter than our sun it also helps that
the thing is 900 times wider than our
hom star too and its color tells us that
its fuel reserves will last for a long
time when Ro copia starts to turn red
and expand it'll be one of the biggest
stars in the entire
universe Now we move to the
constellation Orion the star is in our
sights Beetle Juice one of the largest
ones visible to the uned eye 700 times
the size of our sun if it took our
star's Place its surface would touch the
asteroid belt that's between the orbits
of Jupiter and Mars it would engulf the
four inner planets Earth
included but this star has astronomers
very excited they predict Beetlejuice
will explode in a fantastic Celestial
show in the next 10,000 Years it'll be
the greatest astronomical event of all
time because we'll be able to observe a
supernova at a close but safe enough
distance the exploding star will shine
as bright as a half Half Moon it'll be
visible in the daytime sky for a year
and at night for several more now we
venture to stars that exceed the sun's
width 1,000 times mu sephi is a hyper
giant boasting the title of the reddest
known star its color tells us that the
fuel gauge is getting closer and closer
to empty but it's still so big that it
could hold a billion suns in it and
because of its mass this star will
eventually become a supernova or even a
black hole let's take a trip of almost
4,000 Lighty years from home here it is
a red super giant called VY Canis
Majoris it's one of the biggest and
brightest stars of the Milky Way it
could fit three billion Suns and even
though it's so huge this thing is
surprisingly light only 17 weights of
the Sun in the context of celestial
bodies you could call this star an
inflated balloon in the next 100,000
years V Canis Majoris will explode in a
hypernova gamma radiation will destroy
all life in the local part of the
universe but this star is so far from
our solar system that it wouldn't mean
any harm to us if we placed my sephi in
the center of our solar system it would
bulge all the way out to Saturn's orbit
to remind you just how far away Saturn
is think of it this way it takes the
Sun's light 8 minutes to reach Earth to
get to Saturn it takes well over an hour
compared to this massive star the sun is
just a grain of sand it's one of the
most luminous and reddest stars in our
universe the bigger and redder the star
the closer it is to its end so we're not
looking at just a Titan of the universe
but also one of the oldest celestial
bodies out there the second biggest star
in the universe is UI scai it's about
1.5 billion miles wide 16 times the
distance from the Earth to the sun this
is a pulsating variable star its
brightness changes about every 2 years
UI scai is a recordbreaker in fuel
combustion per year scientists expect it
to evolve back to hotter temperatures
like a yellow giant our journey is
coming to an end before us we behold
Stevenson 218 it takes 20,000 years for
light from this star to reach Earth it's
hard not to see this red super giant on
our tiny terrestrial home it's
2,150 times wider than our sun we'd need
10 billion Suns to fill its volume for
comparison the average Beach contains
only about 5 billion grains of
sand imagine a being so powerful it can
suck in entire galaxies so mysterious
it's invisible to the naked eye and so
impressive it bends the very fabric of
space and time to its will yes meet my
mother and just kidding actually meet
the ultimate superhero of the universe
the black hole star when is it and how
does it work well let's find out the
universe is full of Marvels and the
black hole star is one of the most
impressive ones it's a super massive
force that can bend the laws of physics
and a true Enigma for scientists to
unravel no wonder science fiction
writers find them so
captivating a black hole star also known
as a quasi star is a hypothetical type
of extremely massive and luminous star
that may have existed early in the
history of the Galaxy they're predicted
to be as luminous as a small Galaxy but
unlike modern Stars they were empowered
by nuclear fusion in their CES a quasi
star's energy would come from Material
falling into a black hole at its core
and yes just like a normal black hole
these stars have the power to suck in
anything and everything that gets too
close including Stars dust and even in
entire
galaxies but how is it possible that the
star is born from a black hole and
what's more how do they continue to
coexist together well first let's
discuss how black holes are born in
general it all starts with a super
massive star one that is at least a few
times more massive than our own Sun this
giant of a star Burns bright and hot
shining with the light of a Million Suns
but eventually it runs out of fuel and
its fade is sealed
as its lifespan comes to an end it makes
one final massive boom a blast so
powerful it can outshine an entire
galaxy this blast is called Supernova
during this Boom the outer layers of the
star fly away while the core gets
squished together by its own gravity if
the squished core is heavy enough it can
keep squishing until it becomes a black
hole and just like that a black hole is
born don't even try to put diapers on
this thing now this Cosmic monster baby
can continue to grow by swallowing up
anything that comes too close including
Stars dust and even entire galaxies this
is basically what's happening now in our
universe with super massive stars but
what about quasi
Stars the formation of a quasi star
could only happen early in the
development of the universe before
hydrogen and helium were contaminated by
heavier elements and because of that
quasi stars have one important feature
they are gigantic so enormous that it's
literally impossible to imagine they may
have been dwarfing even the largest
known modern stars like VY Kanis Majoris
and Stevenson 218 no wonder they're so
scary they were born from Proto Stars
one of the first stars in the universe
the great great grandfathers of you know
everything so now imagine a protostar so
massive that its core collapses into a
black hole just like we described before
but the key difference is that in a
regular Supernova the outer layers of
the star are blown away by the energy
released during the boom meanwhile in a
quasi star these outer layers are
massive enough to absorb the energy
without being blown away what do we get
in the end a star with a black hole in
its core that weighs from 1,000 to
10,000 solar masses this quasi star is
about 4 18,000 times bigger than our sun
which makes them bigger than any Star we
know today these Celestial Titans have
some pretty crazy properties once a
black hole is formed at the center of a
giant protostar it starts to give off a
ton of energy this energy helps to
balance out the force of gravity making
it kind of a giant Fusion based star
they would be so bright that each one
would look like a small
Galaxy quasi Stars would have a pretty
short lifespan around 7 million years
just for comparison our sun is about 4.5
billion years old and it's only halfway
through its lifetime but either way
during this short period the black hole
at the center would grow to be about a
th000 to 10,000 times the size of our
sun quasi stars are also thought to be
super hot with temperatures reaching
over
17,500 de but as a quas star gets older
it starts to cool down and its outer
layers become SE see through eventually
it cools down to a temperature of
6,740 De and at that point its curtains
for the Quasi star it can't survive at
that temperature so it just dissipates
leaving behind an intermediate Mass
black hole unfortunately right now
there's no observational evidence for
the existence of Quasi Stars this is
because they're thought to have only
existed a very very long time ago they
may have been very massive population
three stars which are extremely rare and
difficult to detect it's also very
unlikely that any of them would still
exist today because of their super short
lifespan only 7 million years so why do
scientists believe that quasi Stars
could have existed because they're
looking for ways to explain how super
massive black holes formed so early in
the history of the universe they're
found at the center of most galaxies but
how could these monsters have form so
quickly after all it takes a really long
time for small black holes to grow into
super massive ones this is where the
idea of Quasi stars come in these Stars
aren't just destructive forces of nature
they're like the black belts in the
martial art of gravity they can bend and
twist anything to its will that's why
these Stars if they really existed had
to play a crucial role in the evolution
of galaxies they must have been
instrumental in shaping the universe as
we know it so those intermediate Siz
black holes that they left behind could
eventually turned into super massive
black holes in the center of galaxies
but we're still yet to solve this Cosmic
mystery detection and study of black
hole stars is like trying to find a
needle in a hay stack only instead of a
needle it's an invisible and mysterious
object and instead of a hay stack it's
the vast expanse of space but with the
help of some pretty cool technology and
a lot of brain power scientists are
getting closer to uncovering the secrets
of these Celestial Giants here are some
things that can help us in this research
first of all gravitational waves they're
like ripples in the fabric of SpaceTime
caused by the movement of massive
objects Albert Einstein predicted them
way back in the 20th century but they
were finally detected only in 2015 we
caught them by observing the Collision
of two black holes this discovery
confirmed that black holes can merge and
that there powerful source of
gravitational waves scientists think
that by studying these waves they can
learn more about how black holes form
and grow we can also try to detect quasi
Stars by observing the effects of their
gravity on nearby objects it's like
trying to spot a Criminal by their
fingerprints for example if a black hole
is located near a star scientists can
observe the Stars light being distorted
as it's pulled toward the black hole and
of course we can use our Tech
Technologies such as x-ray infrared and
radio telescopes this allows us to study
black holes in various ways and at
different stages of their lives in other
words scientists are working hard to
uncover the secrets of these Celestial
Giants we develop new telescopes search
for primordial black holes and try to
understand the connection between black
hole stars and dark matter and we're
making some pretty incredible
discoveries just like with gravitational
waves all these things will will bring
us closer to uncovering the secrets of
Quasi stars and when we find out the
truth about them it will become a new
page in our scientific
history recently the James web Space
Telescope has spotted something no one
expected to see it might be a new kind
of star that was born in the early
universe and the most shocking thing
about this star is that it's likely to
be powered by dark
matter the thing is around 80 4% of
matter in the universe doesn't emit or
absorb light astronomers call this stuff
which can neither be seen directly nor
detected by indirect means Dark
Matter it supposedly affects visible
matter radiation and the Very structure
of the
universe these days we have several
detectors looking for weakly interacting
massive particles that's what Dark
Matter might be composed of but so far
researchers have found nothing of the
kind one of the most recent studies
claims that dark matter might produce
long fine grain streams radiating out
from Earth like hairs and streaming
throughout the Universe but it hasn't
been proven
yet now returning to dark stars that
might be powered by this mysterious Dark
Matter the very concept of such Stars
Still Remains hypothetical astronomers
aren't sure that the images received by
James web show exactly them but even if
one of the three candidates spotted by
scientists turn turns out to be this new
kind of star it could offer us a glimpse
of how stars formed in the early
Universe plus we would probably be able
to find out something new about dark
matter and even explain how super
massive black holes appeared out
there the first time someone mentioned
the term Dark Star was in 2007 these
space objects could have been some of
the first types of stars to form in the
universe they haven't been observed yet
but astronomers think they might be
powered by heat that is generating
during Dark Matter interactions rather
than by nuclear fusion reactions like it
happens with our
sun experts believe dark stars would
probably look extremely weird they could
have appeared from clouds of hydrogen
and helium that Drew in excess dark
matter we still don't know the nature of
dark matter but there's a theory that
particles of Dark Matter might be able
to interact with themselves annihilating
one another during collisions and thus
producing huge amounts of light and heat
then this heat could have prevented The
Cloud of hydrogen and helium from
condensing it means these gases wouldn't
have been able to create dense hot cores
similar to those the Stars existing
today have and if this gas cloud
wouldn't have condensed dark stars could
have grown to truly enormous size in
theory a dark star could be around 10
times as wide as our planet's orbit
around the sun imagine the sheer size of
such a space
monster these Stars would also be
millions of times as massive as our star
and their light could be billions of
times brighter it might be the reason
why James web managed to spot
them to check for dark stars that might
be lurking out there scientists
thoroughly examined the images from a
jww USP survey of early galaxies they
spotted more than 700 objects that could
have appeared in the first 100 million
years after the universe appeared that's
exactly the time when dark stars were
probably born
[Music]
light from objects that appeared so
unimaginably long ago is stretched or as
astronomers call it red shifted so the
team examining the images picked four
objects that had already been confirmed
to be extremely red shifted it meant
that the researchers were looking at
some of the oldest space objects
observed so far these objects might be
tiny galaxies from the times when our
universe was just a
baby unfortunately since they're so far
far away the resolution of James web
isn't enough to figure out whether
they're indeed galaxies or just large
super bright
[Music]
stars for a few decades scientists have
been debating whether there's a mass gap
between the heaviest neutron stars and
the lightest black holes and finally for
the first time ever researchers have
discovered an object with a mass falling
right into this Gap
it started on the 29th of May 2023 the
ligo Livingston detector in Louisiana
recorded a mysterious signal it was
produced in the process of a merger of a
neutron star with an unknown compact
object it was most likely an
unexpectedly lightweight black hole its
mass could be just a few times that of
our sun that's why this object falls
into the lower Mass gap between the
lightest black holes and the most
massive neutron stars according to
Einstein's theory of general relativity
neutron stars are likely to be lighter
than three times the mass of our sun but
the exact Mass after which a neutron
star will collapse into a black hole is
still unknown and considering our
previous electromagnetic observations we
can expect to find very few black holes
or neutron stars within the range of 3
to five solar masses and still the mass
of one of the newly discovered objects
perfectly aligns with this range but
let's have a better look at at how the
situation with the ligo detector
unfolded just 5 days after the launch of
the fourth observing run things became
really exciting as the detector recorded
a gravitational wave that was classified
as signal candidate s230
529a the online analysis was performed
almost in real time as the signal
arrived and the conclusion was
astounding a neutron star and a black
hole most likely merged around 650
million light years away from our
planet unfortunately it's impossible to
say exactly where the merger had
occurred since only one gravitational
wave detector was recording scientific
data when the signal arrived that's why
the direction from which the
gravitational waves came wasn't
determined and still the researchers
were sure that the signal wasn't some
local disturbance in the ligo Livingston
detector it actually came from deep
space to figure out the properties of
the space bodies that orbited each other
before merging and producing the
gravitational wave signal astronomers
compared data from the ligo Livingston
detector with two waveform models the
detected signal appeared as a result of
the merger of a compact object with 1.3
to 2.1 times the mass of the Sun and
another compact object with 2.6 to 4.7
times the Sun's mass were these compact
objects a neutron star and a black hole
we can't tell for sure using
gravitational wave analysis alone but
based on everything we've learned
learned about the properties of this
binary astronomers think that the
lighter object is a neutron star and the
heavier is a black hole of all the
neutron star black hole mergers we've
detected so far the most recent one is
also the one in which the masses of the
two participating objects are the least
different experts explain that if a
black hole is way heavier than a neutron
star no matter will be left outside the
black hole after the merger no
electromagnetic radiation will be
emitted either as for lighter black
holes they can rip neutron stars apart
with their strong tidal forces in the
process they eject matter that might
glow as a kilonova or a gamma ray burst
the detection of this interesting
phenomenon became possible due to
several improvements made to the
detectors which increased the
sensitivity of the equipment the highly
successful third observing round
finished in Spring 2020 and brought the
number of known gravitational wave
events to 90 the fourth observing round
started in May 2023 researchers at an
Institute in Hanover together with their
ligo colleagues have improved the laser
sources of the ligo detectors located at
the heart of the instruments along with
Hardware experts have also worked on
other features of the detector and now
these space exploration tools can figure
out the properties of black holes within
mere days
check out this Interstellar showstopper
Shadows doing a little dance in space
have spilled the beans on a mindboggling
secret about our solar systems Origins
there's a star called tww hydre that's
playing host to some mischievous discs
that are out of sink spinning at
slightly wonky angles but what's causing
this Celestial chaos well it seems like
a bunch of baby planets are misbehaving
tugging at the discs with their gravity
and throwing everything off balance
hold on tight because things are about
to get even more interesting this star
is a real newbie in the cosmic
neighborhood at just 8 million years old
yep that's practically a cosmic toddler
compared to the ancient sun which has
been around for a whopping 4.6 billion
years this new start hasn't even started
its hydrogen burning season yet it's
still in the process of growing and
compacting under its own gravitational
pull think of it as the sun's younger
doppelganger
here's the lowdown on how stars like tww
hydre get their groove on they gather
Cosmic dust and gas from their
surroundings which forms a swirling disc
around them this disc is like a cosmic
buffet for Planet formation little
specks of matter come together forming
bigger and bigger clumps that eventually
Collide and grow into full-fledged
planets since they're born from a flat
dis these planets usually end up
orbiting their star in a neat flat plane
now our new star has struck gold with
its it unique orientation we're lucky
enough to have a front row seat to this
Cosmic construction site because we can
see the disc face on and guess what it
looks a lot like our solar system this
gives us a chance to uncover some juicy
secrets about our own planetary
Origins back in 2017 eagle-eyed
astronomers noticed a shadow making its
way around this new stars disc it
completed a full rotation every 16 years
initially they thought this Shadow might
be evidence of a sneaky young Planet
forming within the disc causing parts of
it to wobble in different directions
fast forward to 2021 and things took an
unexpected twist the shadow did
something totally unexpected leaving
everyone scratching their heads hold
your horses though The Savvy team of
astronomers didn't give up easily they
put their thinking caps on and came up
with a few possible explanations after
extensive modeling they hit the jackpot
it turns out not just one but two wobbly
discs were at play Casting Shadows on a
third outer disc this suggests the
existence of a second young Planet
making it a cosmic double
feature imagine these two planets
zooming around one trying to outpace the
other like a pair of racing cars the
data suggests that the first disc is
about 5 to six astronomical units from
the Star while the second disc is around
6 to S astronomical units away for
reference our Mighty Jupiter orbits the
Sun at a distance of 5.2 astronomical
units
so it's like a cosmic game of tag with
the planets influencing each other's
orbits as these planetary Misfits go
about their orbits their gravitational
interplay causes the discs to tilt
slightly with respect to one another
this creates Shadows that dim the outer
regions of the
disc oh and by the way this totally
matches our own solar system Vibe why
because some of the planets in our own
solar system are Rebels too and have
orbital inclinations that vary by up to
7° I'm looking at you Mercury or a
whopping 17° if you count our dear
friend Pluto who knows if we continue
researching this new star it might just
spill the beans on how our own solar
systems got its funky orbital
inclinations how exactly do we Define
our solar system though it's like a
Celestial neighborhood with eight funky
planets happily orbiting our sun in
order of proximity to the sun we have
Mercury Venus Earth Mars Jupiter Saturn
Uranus and Neptune oh and we can't
forget Pluto our little dwarf planet
friend who used to be part of the planet
Club our solar system is way more than
just the sum of its planets it's like a
Fantastical mashup of asteroids comets
Stars moons and a whole bunch of other
Spacey stuff that makes our Cosmic home
truly
enchanting contrary to popular belief
the hottest planet isn't the one getting
all cozy next to the sun nope it's Venus
the second closest planet how come you
might ask well Venus is scorching
because it has an Ultra thick atmosphere
it's basically like it's wearing a 100
layers of sweaters when sunlight pierces
through this super dense atmosphere it
turns Venus into a fiery furnace we've
also got some rocks on Earth that are
like interplanetary tourists from Mars
can you believe it scientists have found
these rocks here and they're chock full
of the same gassy goodness found on the
red planet how did they get here the
most plausible scenario is that Mars
sent a souvenir package through an
asteroid crash or volcanic fireworks
show
our planet is also the ultimate
chemistry whiz sure other planets have
bits and pieces of the elements we have
but we've got the whole shebang iron
oxygen silicon sulfur magnesium sodium
nickel calcium aluminum if you can name
it we most likely have it here somewhere
other planets are like Hey we're mostly
rock with helium and hydrogen but we're
here with our unique blend of
interstellar
awesomeness Jupiter however the
heavyweight champ of our solar system
has a never-ending party happening in
its atmosphere it's called the Great Red
Spot and it's been swirling with
hurricane-like intensity for more than
300 years this stormy event boasts
extremely powerful winds reaching a
blazing 270 mph oh and by the way this
colossal storm is more than twice the
size of our entire
Earth Neptune on the other hand knows
how to make an entrance it's got the
fastest wind speeds in the solar system
zipping around at more than 1200 mph
just like Jupiter and Saturn Neptune
actually produces more energy than it
gets from the Sun as it turns out
Neptune's energy comes from its core and
that's what powers its super duper
strong winds on the surface now you
might be wondering how does Neptune
manage to keep all that energy to itself
well it's all thanks to a special
blanket of methane gas which acts like a
cosmic Snuggie this Snuggie or rather
greenhouse gas traps the Heat and keeps
it cozy on the planet if Neptune were a
bit more like Rus which is a bit of a
slacker in the energy Department all
that heat would have gone on a space
vacation ages ago despite the chilly
temperatures Neptune doesn't let it
bring down its funky style it radiates a
whopping 2.7 times more heat than it
receives from the sun it's like Neptune
saying hey Sun you're cool but I've got
enough heat to make my winds wild and
crazy space isn't as far away as you
might imagine the Carmen line which is
approximately 62 Mi above Earth Earth is
like the official starting point of
space if you could drive your car
straight up into the sky you'd actually
reach that Mark in less than an hour
that's even quicker than some people's
daily commute as it turns out our solar
system is actually already halfway
through its estimated life cycle
scientists estimate that our solar
system is around 4.6 billion years old
and it's expected to keep going strong
for another 5 billion years we've still
got a lot of time left in this Celestial
ride in the meantime the sun our fiery
Superstar will keep trying to pull the
planets towards it talk about being
clingy gravity on the sun is so powerful
that it's constantly exerting its pull
but don't worry the planets are not just
passive participants they're like
determin tug-of war players pulling in
the opposite direction and keeping a
fine balance as a result the planets end
up kind of floating in the middle it's
no wonder the sun has so much power
around here the mass of the Sun is
mind-blowingly huge in fact the Sun's
mass is around 330,000 times that of our
beloved Earth and get this it accounts
for over 99% of the total mass in our
solar
system stars are beautiful colorful
things there are red giants those are
nearing the end of their lives and are
on the verge of explosions blue stars
shine in the belt of the constellation
Oran as well as other places yellow ones
like our sun are pretty ordinary they're
usually warm war and stable enough to
support life but look at the night sky
attentively do you see any green or
purple stars nope they're kind of
invisible because of the way we humans
perceive visible light the color of a
star mostly depends on its surface
temperature the hotter it is the shorter
wavelengths the lighted demits will have
the hottest stars are blue or white blue
those are some of the shortest
wavelengths of light cooler stars are
normally red and red Brown which are
longer w wavelengths at the same time
Stars never send out their light in just
one wavelength it's more of a range of
light the wavelengths of light from a
star peak in just one color in a
bell-shaped curve but the star emits
other colors too human eyes have evolved
to see yellow and green radiation
probably because our sun emits it mainly
in these wavelengths but a green star
emits radiation right in the center of
the visible light spectrum in all
possible colors
that's why such stars appear white which
is a combination of all Hues actually
our sun emits quite a lot of green light
but we perceive it as white purple stars
though are something our eyes won't ever
see because they're sensitive to Blue
Light and since Stars emitting purple
light send out a lot of blue light too
because these shades are next to each
other on the visible light spectrum the
human eye picks up only the blue light
when it comes to other objects in the
solar system many planets seem to have
no obvious Hue look at Venus Saturn or
Jupiter they look kind of bland probably
whitish at best but there are several
planets that boast very decisive colors
for example Mars looks orange red
Neptune is blue and Uranus has a
beautiful blue green Hue the planet gets
it from all that methane gas in its
atmosphere meteors sometimes display a
vivid green too and look at breathtaking
bright auroras green is the most common
color of the northern lights but not
Stars never ever Stars the brightest
star in the sky besides our sun of
course is sirious it's twice as bright
as its competitor canopus located in the
southern constellation Karina being the
most brilliant Sirius is very easy to
identify probably the coolest thing
about this star is that it seems to be
changing its color but we'll get to it a
bit later this star is whiter and hotter
than the sun its surface temperature is
17,300 De F while the Sun surface
temperature only reaches 10,000 de F
when you combine the immense heat Sirius
emits with its girth 1.75 times the size
of the sun you'll understand why the
star looks so bright in the night sky
Sirius has a companion star it's called
the pup it's a tiny but incredibly dense
white dwarf with a diameter of a mere
7,000 Mi this makes it smaller than
Earth at the same time its mass reaches
98% of that of the Sun
it means that the matter inside this
tiny star is squeezed very very tightly
that's why its gravitational pull is
350,000 times greater than Earth's a
person weighing 150 lb would weigh 50
million PB on the
star now Sirius is famous for its
twinkling and since it is also the
brightest star we can observe the
everpresent turbulence in its atmosphere
quite well as for the star changing its
color it has to do with the atmosphere
of our planet Rockets of air at
different temperatures Focus Starlight
this way and that like small lenses we
see it as twinkling but since white
light is made of different colors one
pocket might send some red our way
another will send blue or yellow and
totally random order that's why it seems
that serious twinkles in
color castles were cold places in times
past the stone seemed to radiate the
Winter Chill this is one practical
reason why tapestries were hung upon
castle walls to help keep the cold out
and the warmth in but you just can't
hang any old thing on castle walls it
should be beautiful heroic with a heavy
wow factor the ancient Greeks hung
tapestries on the walls of their castle
of the sky glorious tapestries woven of
stars all 48 constellations of the
northern hemisphere were designed and
named by the Greeks the story of
Andromeda is one such tapestry woven of
seven constellations spread across the
entire Autumn Sky the story contains
detailed astronomical observations
preserved as highlights in the sky
tapestry it begins with the
constellation copia Queen of the oldest
realm in Africa Ethiopia when the
constellation copia is on the horizon it
looks like a staircase going up to the
Milky Way step pyramids around the world
are often thought to have been inspired
by the constellation copia in any case
copia is a beautiful constellation
indicating that Queen copia was also a
beautiful woman she was good-looking but
equally vain which sets off all the
dramatic action copia can be found in
the night sky opposite Ursa Major from
the North Star like Ursa Major copia
circles the North Star and is a
circumpolar constellation a supernova
was observed in copia around 1680 Earth
time copia a having occurred about
11,000 years earlier the Chandra x-ray
satellite recently recorded an
extraordinary photograph of this
Supernova Remnant showing the elements
sulfur calcium silicon and iron amid the
expanding clouds high-intensity x-rays
cassop Pia's husband is also a
circumpolar constellation a minor dim
one named sephus he had his own kingdom
a merger of Empires by way of marriage
is something common throughout history
sephus was a king of Phoenicia there
were many kings of Phoenicia back in the
days when Phoenicia was just a
collection of city states along the
western shore of the Mediterranean Sea
cus can be found in the area between
copia and the Northstar the
constellation of sephus is important to
astronomers it's where Henrietta Swan
leovit discovered VAR able stars that
pulsed at regular intervals the rate of
pulsation of the star indicates the true
brightness of the star and enables a
sure measurement of the distance to the
star the discovery of sea FID variable
Stars was a major breakthrough for early
20th century astronomy cus and copia had
a daughter Andromeda also a noted Beauty
about whom all the fuss is it seems that
one day copia was boasting about the
beauty of her and and her daughter
Andromeda we are more beautiful than any
other women in the whole wide world well
such pretension can be forgiven for a
queen but then copia went further and
stepped beyond all natural bounds in
fact we are more beautiful than any of
the nads well the nads were Greek
mythological sea nymphs Daughters of the
ocean noted for their beauty and
kindness to Sailors the nits all 50 of
them took offense at being diminished
dissed by a mere mortal woman copia had
to be punished for exceeding the bounds
of the Civil order by her excessive
vanity copia transgressed beyond the
bounds of nature for which an unnatural
punishment was inflicted upon the entire
Kingdom of Ethiopia a monster from the
bottom of the ocean the constellation
cus began to devastate the coastal
Villages of Ethiopia as well as
Ethiopia's fishing ships fittingly cetus
is a a constellation of the Southern
Celestial hemisphere the fourth largest
by area of all the constellations cedus
swims in a dark part of the sky called
the ocean with only its head Rising
above the celestial Equator this part of
the sky contains several water themed
constellations Pisces the fishes
Aquarius the water Bearer and idenus the
river over 50 exoplanets have been
discovered in cedus you can bet the
James web Space Telescope will have a
feel day analyzing the Spectra of these
planets atmospheres looking for signs of
Life meanwhile queen copia and king seus
must do something about the monster
devastating the shores of Ethiopia they
consult an Oracle and make another
trespass beyond the realm of reason and
nature tell us Oracle what can we do to
stop the monster from ravaging our
kingdom this monster is not a normal
Affliction of nature an offense was
committed against the higher Realms and
this this is the punishment the monster
cannot be stopped by any normal means
only a human sacrifice of the noblest
being May plate the Beast one error
compounds another the noblest person in
the Kingdom of course is Princess
Andromeda according to the command of
her father and the consent or perhaps a
suggestion of her mother Andromeda is
chained to a rock offshore she is the
human sacrifice that her parents hope
will save the kingdom
wow here comes the Greek hero to save
the day stop the human sacrifice and
Turn cedus to Stone Perseus now where is
Perseus coming from according to Legend
the herdes Perseus went to the hdes in
pursuit of the Gorgon Medusa the
geological scope of this tapestry is
incredible from the Hees to the Red Sea
the herdes are an archipelago of mostly
Rocky islands off the western coast of
Scot
it was impossible to sail any further
the Hees were the absolute end of the
world Perseus didn't have to sail to the
Hees however he flew on a pair of winged
sandals hey way to go pereus now Medusa
was one of the all-time baddies one look
at Medusa was so terrifying it would
petrify you literally turn you to Stone
pereus was in great danger so what did
our hero do instead of looking at Medusa
Perseus used the scientific principle of
reflection he slew Medusa by seeing her
reflected in his polished shield in our
Sky tapestry percus is portrayed holding
up the severed head of Medusa in the
night sky one eye in Medusa's head opens
and closes and opens again Arabic
astronomers name the star alol the ghoul
alol is an eclipsing double star when
Star is bright the other one not that
much as the dimmer star orbits the
bright star it passes in front of the
bright star eclipsing it and the eye
closes since the dim star takes 2 days
20 hours and 49 minutes to orbit the
bright star the eye in Medusa's head
opens every day and a half or so the
constellation of Perseus is immediately
below copia and skywatchers quickly look
to see if alol is eclipsed if Medusa's
eye is open or closed Perseus flew back
from the Hees accompanied by Pegasus the
winged horse the central part of Pegasus
is the great Square made up of four
stars as earth goes around the Sun the
great square is right in the center of
the night sky in autumn in the summer
the summer triangle of Vega denb and
alter are in the middle of the night sky
in Spring it's Leo the Lion and in
winter it's Orion the hunter these are
the walls of the Castle in the Sky and
all have marvelous tapestries adorning
them the constellation of Andromeda
shares a star named alpharet with with
Pegasus it's one of the corners of the
great Square so it appears Andromeda may
be riding on Pegasus her crown remember
she is a princess is floating nearby M31
the Andromeda galaxy to see M31 cross
the corners of the great Square from the
lowest star to the uppermost star and
then go a little further to see the
Andromeda galaxy be sure to peek at it
from the corner of your eyes it's called
averted Vision the corners of your eyes
are more sensitive to light so you'll be
able to see the huge spiral galaxy 2.5
million light years away as a smudge of
light one and 1 half times wider than
the full moon now pereus doesn't go in
for Human Sacrifice so he stops IT and
saves Andromeda by exposing cedus to
Medusa's gaze and here we encounter the
second eclipsing variable in our Sky
tapestry mirror the heart Star of cedus
the Sea Monster mirror from which we get
the English word mirror so fitting in
the story about Bane beauty is an
eclipsing double star the dim star
orbiting the bright star is a white
dwarf not bright enough to see with the
uned eye the effect is that cetus is
heart shuts off mirror is eclipsed and
disappears this cycle repeats itself
every 332 days our fabulous star
tapestry has the only two eclipsing
binary Stars visible to uned eyes the
nearest spiral galaxy and a hero that
doesn't like human sacrifice and uses
the scientific principle of reflection
to thwart mythological monsters wow I
would hang that in my castle too just
saying a powerful burst of gamma
radiation lasted a mere half second but
it released an enormous amount of energy
it was more than our sun would produce
in 10 billion years this brief flash lit
up the whole Sky afterward a much softer
and more long lasting glow replaced it
astronomers examined the Phenomenon with
x-ray radio Optical and infrared waves
it turned out that people had finally
seen a newborn magnetar for the first
time ever it was likely formed after two
neutron stars had merged it resulted in
a kilan NOA one of the brightest and
largest Stellar blasts its light finally
reached our planet on May 22nd 2020
imagine a massive star at least five
times the mass of our sun reaching the
end of its life it might be because it's
run out of its nuclear fuel if it
happens the star starts to cool off the
pressure inside drops and the gravity
starts to squeeze Inward and then more
than a million times the mass of our
planet collapses within 15 seconds it
happens so fast that an enormous shock
wave causes the outer part of the star
to blow up it produces a blinding burst
of light this powerful blast is called a
supernova
What's Left Behind is an incredibly
dense core with a huge cloud of hot gas
called a nebula expanding around it if
the star has been massive enough more
than 10 times the size of the sun it's
likely to turn into a black hole if not
it turns into a neutron star it's
basically a giant nucleus the central
part of an atom these stars are mostly
made up of neutrons and are rarely
larger than 20 M across for comparison
our son is almost 865,000 M across which
is 109 Earths put side by side but don't
let this relatively tiny size fool you
any neutron star is at least 1 and 1/2
times heavier than our sun and has an
intense magnetic field if you scooped
just a teaspoon of this star's insides
this matter would weigh more than a
billion tons it's so dense that it makes
neutron stars some of the most extreme
objects people know about the next stop
is the black hole itself when two
neutron stars merge they most often
create a new much heavier one within
milliseconds or even less this star
collapses into a black hole but the
astronomers who examined the flash of
light recorded in March think there
might be another outcome they're almost
sure they saw something never observed
before the birth of a magnetar that's a
rare form of a neutron star with an
ultra strong magnetic field it's one
thousand trillion times stronger than
our planets this field is also so
powerful it heats the star surface up to
18 million de F to put it simply
magnetars are the most powerful magnets
in the universe their magnetic fields
can seriously mess with the neighborhood
Adams unlucky enough to get close to
such a star get stretched into Pencil
Thin lines if you somehow found yourself
several hundred miles away from a
magnetar it would end badly for for you
the magnetic field would first disrupt
your bioelectricity it means that your
nerve impulses wouldn't work anymore
even your molecules would change under
the influence of the star's field in the
end you'd pretty much vanish if a
magnetar flew within 100,000 mil from
our planet it would wipe out all the
data on every single credit card in the
world locating the North Star is quite
easy on a clear night the only thing you
need to do is find the Big Dipper those
two stars on the end of the Dipper's Cup
point the way to the North Star see it's
the tip of the handle of the Little
Dipper or the tail of the little bear
it's in the constellation Ura minor over
there people have been watching the
North Star for centuries this bright
star is also known as Polaris it's
situated almost directly over our
planet's North Pole which makes it a
great Landmark for a traveler without a
compass or a GPS on their smartphone
it's also Earth's closest seid that's
what we call a star that pulses
regularly in brightness and diameter
Polaris is also part of a binary system
of two stars it's got a dimmer sister
it's known as Polaris B you can actually
see it circling the North Stars from
Earth but the more astronomers watch
Polaris the less they understand the
problem is no one can agree on how big
or distant the star is scientist have
several ways to estimate the mass age
and distance of a star like Polaris one
method is called the Stellar Evolution
method after studying the brightness
color and rate of pulsation of a star
experts use this data to figure out how
big or bright it is as well as what
stage of life it's in once these details
are clear it's not hard to find out how
far a star actually is it's simple math
once you know the Luminosity of a star
in real life and how dim it looks from
our
planet such models are especially
precise for stars like Polaris because
the rate of their pulsing is directly
related to their brightness this makes
it easy to figure out the distance to
any of those Stars astronomers trust
this method so much that seates have
become an important tool for measuring
distances all across the universe at the
same time there are other ways to study
the North Star and they don't agree with
the Stellar Evolution models Polaris is
a so-called astrometric binary it means
you can see its companion going around
it it looks as if a circle is being
drawn around the bigger star to complete
one orbit the smaller star needs around
26 years even though astronomers haven't
made detailed observations of Polaris
B's full circuit they've seen enough to
know what its orbit looks like using
this information one can apply Newton's
laws of gravity to calculate the masses
of the two Stars combined with the
hobble space telescope's new
measurements these calculations lead to
very precise numbers Polaris is supposed
to be around 3.45 times the mass of the
Sun but that's much less than the mass
you get from Stellar Evolution models
they suggest a value of almost seven
times the mass of the Sun but there's
another reason why this star system is
weird after calculating the ages of the
Stars researchers concluded that Polaris
B is much older than its bigger sibling
but it's extremely unusual for a binary
system normally both stars are of the
same
age one explanation might be that at
least one of the measurements is simply
wrong after all Polaris is a difficult
star to study since it's positioned
above our planet's North Pole it's
outside the field of view of most
telescopes as for those telescopes that
do have the needed equipment for
measuring the star's properties
precisely they're typically used for
studying much more distant and fainter
Stars Polaris is simply too bright for
such instruments it blinds them there's
a theory that the main star of the
Polaris system was once two stars but
they collided a few million years ago
such a binary Collision could rejuvenate
Stars by pulling in extra material and
making the stars look as if they went
through the Fountain of Youth it would
also explain some other Oddities since
stars that appear as a result of binary
collisions don't fit Stellar Evolution
models unfortunately so far none of the
theories have been
confirmed the North Star is actually a
big deal Earth is spinning non-stop
which causes the sun to rise and set and
stars to travel across the sky our
planet is also tilted that's why we have
seasons if we drew a line through the
axis Earth spins around and extended it
over 300 Lighty years past the North
Pole at the end of that imaginary line
there would be the North Star it stays
almost exactly at the same spot in the
sky at all times and always points The
Way North it's really important for
navigation people heavily relied on it
in the days before GPS if you were
standing on the equator Polaris would be
right at the Horizon at the North Pole
it would seem to be right over your head
in other words using the Stars height in
the sky you can not only figure out the
needed Direction but also understand
where you are on Earth Earth curiously
there's no South Star there isn't a
bright enough Star right above the South
Pole but one day we might get such a
star when you spin a Tob on the table
its end Moves In A Circle we know this
phenomenon as
procession Earth behaves in the same way
and the North and South Poles won't
always Point towards the same spots in
the sky in the next 26,000 years it may
cause the North Star to change from
Polaris to a few other stars and back
again one day the title of the North
Star will go to Vega it's the fifth
brightest star in the night sky and the
second brightest in the northern
Celestial hemisphere Vega has another
name Alpha ler that's because it's the
main star of the lra constellation Vega
has been one of the most crucial stars
to people since ancient times it's very
bright and blue hence very IR
recognizable Vega was the North Star
several thousand years ago and it'll
regain this status in 12,000 years or so
this star is located a mere 25 Lighty
years from Earth it's just 450 million
years old which makes it way younger
than our own 4.6 billion year old star
system astronomers study Vega to learn
more about star systems in the early
stages of their formation Vega is almost
directly overhead at midn Northern
latitudes on a summer night it hides
behind the Horizon for only 7 hours a
day you can see it on any night of the
year if you travel farther south you'll
find out that Vega lies below the
Horizon for longer periods of time but
in Alaska Northern Canada and some parts
of Europe Vega never sets Vega's blue
white light is bright enough to be
featured a lot in ancient cultures from
the Chinese to the Polynesians to the
Hindus Vega's name can also be
translated as falling or swooping this
is a reference to the times when people
regarded this constellation as a
swooping vulture not a Lear Vega was
also the first star to get photographed
other than the son of course to do it
astronomers at Harvard College
Observatory used a 15in refractor and it
happened again in 1850 around two
decades later an amateur astronomer
broke down Vega's light to reveal
various elements making up the star in
2006 thanks to telescopic observations
scientists found out that Vega was
whipping around so fast that its poles
were several thousand de warmer than its
Equator the star rotates every 12.5
hours and is at 90% of its critical
rotation speed that's the velocity at
which an object can tear itself apart in
2013 researchers announced that they had
discovered an asteroid belt around Vega
it means there might be planets
somewhere out there among space rocks
there are two areas an outer region that
contains icy a asids and an inner region
with warmer space
rocks scientists can examine bright
stars like Vega using NASA's mission
called Tess which stands for transiting
exoplanet survey satellite it was
launched in 2018 to conduct an all Sky
survey the main goal of this mission is
to search for exoplanets but the
satellite can also look for Star
variability by examining such stars as
Vega Tess can help scientists learn
learn more about the early stages of
star Evolution hey look at this blazing
monster it's a white dwarf these stars
are known for gobbling up passing
objects and one day these objects might
be the planets of our own solar system
according to a new study parts of the
solar system will be pulled into a white
dwarf star crushed up and eventually
ground into a fine dust like coffee
beans in a blade grinder hey you like
that analogy now white dwarfs are a
final stage of a star's life it's a
small but very Dense Star that's
typically the size of a planet the
result of a low mass star exhausting all
the nuclear fuel in its Center and
losing its outer layers as a planetary
nebula when our sun turns into a white
dwarf and it is bound to happen sometime
it'll destroy the asteroids and moons
around Mars and Jupiter they will be
pulverized by its gravity Earth though
will be swallowed up even before the sun
turns into a white dwarf
but it won't happen for another 6
billion years researchers working on
this topic have come to such conclusions
by observing what happened to space
bodies asteroids moons and planets that
were passing close to three white dwarfs
for 17 years they observed and analyzed
transits that's when the brightness of a
white dwarf dips because of an object in
a stable orbit passing in front of it in
the case of white dwarfs we can predict
such transits and use them to study the
Stars themselves and celestial objects
passing by
them so when something gets too close to
a white dwarf star the star's immense
gravity rips it into smaller and smaller
pieces of debris the team also found out
that transits of such debris are chaotic
plus this debris is oddly shaped which
means that it is being devoured further
the first white dwarf used for studying
the transit process this here guy seems
steady and well behaved over the last
few years well until scientists found
some evidence of a massive catastrophic
event that occurred in 2010 or so the
next star dims irregularly every couple
of months before brightening again and
the third dwarf star used to behave
close to theoretical predictions it had
transits that varied in number shapes
and depths but the latest study has
shown that the transits are now
completely gone and this indicates the
unpredicted nature of transits when
minute you see them the next poof the
reason might be the chaotic environment
they have to exist in as for our own
solar system and our planet in general
its fate looks pretty sad Earth will be
swallowed by the expanding Sun even
before our star turns into a white dwarf
as for the rest of the solar system
located further from the Sun some of the
asteroids between Mars and Jupiter as
well as some of Jupiter's moons will be
destroyed later oh well they're likely
to get disl Ed and travel too close to
the white
dwarf now at the same time astronomers
aren't 100% sure that it's exactly what
will happen with our solar system so I
guess we'll just have to wait and see
for like 6 billion years speaking of
white dwarfs scientists have recently
found one that has a bizarre metallic
scar on its surface this blemish could
have formed after the star ripped up and
ate a tiny planet orbiting it why dwarf
with traces of metal in their
atmospheres aren't rare these traces are
left by planets falling into Stars
affected by their gravity experts have
long thought that such metal should be
distributed evenly across the surface of
such polluted white dwarves but a new
study has discovered a white dwarf with
a weird concentrated patch of metal the
star was monitored over a period of 2
months with the help of the very large
telescope in Chile the researchers found
an opaque patch of metal it was is
located over one of the Stars magnetic
poles and block some of the Stars light
as it rotated based on this position
astronomers concluded that the material
could have been funneled into the Star
by its powerful magnetic field this
process is similar to one causing Aurora
on Earth where charged particles follow
the magnetic field to the
surface now the planet destroyed by the
white dwarf was most likely very small
around the same size as asteroid Vesta
in our our solar system which is a mere
326 M across its debris is now
prominently displayed on the host star
surface it makes it easier for
researchers to examine what the planet's
geochemistry was before it was devoured
such a study might even turn out to be
one of the best ways to observe small
worlds beyond the solar system even if
such a world has already met its demands
there might be many more scarred stars
like this one the one in question was
the first but probably not the last even
better astronomers have already
discovered two white dwarfs that seem to
have similar scars making repeat
observations of such Stars might help us
unearth pardon the pun no I meant to do
that unearth even more secrets and make
more discoveries another bizarre white
dwarf discovered not long ago seems to
have stopped cooling due to the
formation of internal crystals it
challenges existing theories on Star
aging and also questions the method of
Stellar AG estimation but scientists
might have understood why it may be
happening white dwarfs are believed to
be dead stars they keep cooling down
over time and normally this process
can't be reversed or paused but in 2019
the European space agency's GAA
satellite discovered a number of white
dwarf stars that had stopped cooling for
more than 8 billion years it might mean
that some white dwarfs can generate a
lot of extra energy which is at odds
with the classical dead star Theory at
first astronomers couldn't figure out
how it might happen but in the end more
than 97% of stars in the Milky Way
galaxy turn into white dwarfs
astronomers have long thought that such
stars are at the end of their lives
after depleting their nuclear energy
source they stop producing heat and cool
down eventually the dense Plasma in
their insides freezes into a solid state
and the star solidifies from inside out
the whole process can take billions of
years but the new research claims that
in some white dwarfs this dense plasma
doesn't simply freeze instead its solid
crystals forming upon freezing become
less dense than the liquid and start
floating around they displace the
heavier liquid downward the movement of
heavier material toward the center of a
white dwarf releases gravitational
energy and this energy is enough to
interrupt the star's cooling process and
called it for billions of years now this
explanation actually matches all of the
properties of the unusual white dwarf
population but this is the first time
such a transport mechanism has been seen
in any type of star and that's
incredibly exciting a totally new
astrophysical phenomenon but why does it
happen in some stars but not in others
it most likely depends on the
composition of the star you see some
white dwarf stars are formed by the
merger of two different Stars when they
Collide and form a white dwarf it
changes the composition of the star
which allows the formation of floating
crystals so this discovery might mean
that astronomers will have to review the
ways they use to determine the age of
stars at the moment white dwarfs are
often used as age indicators the cooler
a white dwarf is the older it's believed
to be but now we already know about
possible delays in the cooling process
of some dwarves it makes the popular age
determination method more unreliable
some stars of a given temperature may be
billions of years older than we
previously thought the recently
uncovered transport mechanism within
white dwarfs means that some of these
Stars can be shining as bright as normal
for billions of years this complicates
age dating and the use of white dwarfs
to reconstruct the formation of our
galaxy hey stay tuned
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