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The eruption of neighboring superstar Eta Carinae over 170 years ago is fascinating researchers and setting records for the fastest jettisoned gas from a stellar outburst.
Approximately 170 years ago, a stellar eruption sped away from our massive (and incredibly unstable) neighboring superstar Eta Carinae. Now, a team from the University of Arizona in conjunction with NASA has determined this event holds the record for the fastest jettisoned gas ever measured from a star -- without the star self-destructing.
The energy from the blast would be equivalent to that of a traditional supernova explosion, events that often leave behind only the corpse of a star. However, this double star system stayed relatively intact.
For the last seven years, University of Arizona's Nathan Smith and the Space Telescope Science Institute's Armin Rest determined how powerful the blast was by looking at echoes of light surrounding Eta Carinae.
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Wednesday August 08 2018, @05:18PM (1 child)
I wonder if it would be possible for amateurs to set up ground telescopes with advanced adaptive optics and giant mirrors. Even though something like the Extremely Large Telescope [wikipedia.org] is downright reasonably priced for what you get: about €1.2 billion. But what could you do with $10 million?
Imagine a liquid mirror telescope [wikipedia.org], made with as large of an aperture as possible, optimized for a large field of view given that it can't be pointed at particular objects. Add the same adaptive optics being used by VLT and ELT. It probably would have to go to Chile or some other desert since you would want dry weather conditions.
For the direct observation part, a telescope could display some sort of live lightly processed feed of what is being viewed. And stuff like that already exists:
https://www.slooh.com/ [slooh.com]
https://spacetelescopelive.org/ [spacetelescopelive.org]
http://kopiko.ifa.hawaii.edu/cams/ps1.shtml [hawaii.edu] (this is just a camera viewing the sky)
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday August 08 2018, @06:43PM
Still, my point is that seeing the actual photons which bounce off the rings of Saturn is a lot more exciting than seeing a picture, even a live one.
Our eyes are too limited, and many of the pictures we see online could never be observed first-hand by puny humans. But if there was a 1m telescope in town that you could point to Mars, Jupiter, the ISS, or Saturn, and put your eyeball to it, that would be quite the experience, one that most kids or adults never get a chance at.