Down the throat of a dying star


	Down the throat of a dying star

JohnWaterman

6-10-2009 1:01 PM

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JohnWaterman says:

"Nebulae like this look like gigantic solid objects, but in fact a dense one would still be considered a hard vacuum in the laboratory. There might be something like 10,000 or even 100,000 atoms in a cubic centimeter of nebular gas, but compare that to the 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms in air at sea level!"

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6-11-2009 5:41 AM

vanjoy

amazing!this thing really fill my heart i love stars....so beautiful!

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/91acec6d-ca47-436e-ac82-85d14c65afbb/EC6213BD-2B8B-472A-9CC1-D23F04FF260E/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/06/10/down-the-throat-of-a-dying-star/" href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/06/10/down-the-throat-of-a-dying-star/" style="font-size: 11px;">blogs.discovermagazine.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/06/10/down-the-throat-of-a-dying-star/"><P>I love planetary nebulae; they are among my favorite objects in the sky. First, of course, they are beautiful: eerie rings, ellipses, flowing gas, symmetry. Second, they are poetic: the dying gasps of a sun-like star, ejecting septillions of tons of gas that glows and forms these dramatic objects.</P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/06/10/down-the-throat-of-a-dying-star/"><P>And they all have a tale to tell. </P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/06/10/down-the-throat-of-a-dying-star/"><P>One of the best stories belongs to the Helix Nebula. And it’s telling it loud.</P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/06/10/down-the-throat-of-a-dying-star/"><CENTER>
<TABLE><TBODY><TR><TD align="center"><A target="_blank" href="http://www.eso.org/gallery/v/ESOPIA/Nebulae/phot-07a-09.tif.html"><IMG src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3413/3598288549_cceabbbf72_o.jpg" /></A></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P></P></CENTER><BR clear="all" />
<P>Oh yes, you want to click that to embiggen it</P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/06/10/down-the-throat-of-a-dying-star/">once not unlike the Sun, now undergoing paroxysms</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/06/10/down-the-throat-of-a-dying-star/">blasting out a super stellar wind of gas. The naked core of the star is white hot — 120,000 Celsius, 25 times hotter than the Sun! — flooding the gas with ultraviolet light</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/06/10/down-the-throat-of-a-dying-star/">The Helix is <EM>huge</EM>, more than 2 light years (20 trillion km or 12 trillion miles) across, and close to us: only about 700 light years away. That’s practically in our laps on a galactic scale</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/06/10/down-the-throat-of-a-dying-star/"><EM>you can see distant galaxies right through the nebula itself!</EM></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/06/10/down-the-throat-of-a-dying-star/"><div align="center"><img src="http://content9.clipmarks.com/blog_cache/blogs.discovermagazine.com/img/265A06E5-13A9-4323-8E16-B271072D7CA9" alt="The center of the Helix" /></div></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/06/10/down-the-throat-of-a-dying-star/">gas so thin it’s barely distinguishable from space itself</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/06/10/down-the-throat-of-a-dying-star/">very beautiful.</blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/EC6213BD-2B8B-472A-9CC1-D23F04FF260E/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content6.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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