It is called Westerlund 1, the name of the Swedish astronomer Bengt Westerlund round chafing dish w

It is called Westerlund 1, the name of the Swedish astronomer Bengt Westerlund round chafing dish with glass lid who discovered it in 1961. It is a star cluster particularly exceptional located about 12 000 light-years from us in the constellation of the Altar. Exceptional because this stellar group includes several tens of very massive stars. Among them is W26 which is one of the largest known stars in the galaxy, if not the greatest. Astronomers estimate that the radius of the red supergiant is more than 1500 times that of the Sun. More than a billion kilometers. To represent things better, imagine round chafing dish with glass lid that magically replaces W26 our day star in the solar system. At the end of this hypothetical round-pocus, the star would engulf the orbits of Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars and Jupiter ...
But ironically (and astrophysics), the most massive stars are also the most ephemeral. Life literally burning at both ends, they still usually only a few tens of million years, compared to a figure of 10 billion round chafing dish with glass lid years of the Sun. Before ending his life into a fantastic explosion - supernova - which will lead to turn into a neutron star or black hole, a red supergiant experiencing turbulent agony. Become unstable, it ejects a considerable amount of matter round chafing dish with glass lid in space. For astronomers, this weight loss is essential to understand the evolution round chafing dish with glass lid of these stellar monsters, but these events are very complicated to observe because, well to be detectable, the ejected gas to be ionized. Gold, red supergiants are unable to do: with a relatively low surface temperature, they do not provide enough energy to extract electrons to hydrogen atoms and to "shine".
However, an international team has overcome this handicap enjoying a li jo coincidence to observe a cloud of circumstellar round chafing dish with glass lid gas around W26, thanks to the Very Large Telescope of ESO (European Southern Observatory). In a study published Oct. 16 in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters, these astronomers explain that external power source has to ionize the hydrogen nebula. The mechanism is not yet identified, but the researchers suggest three scenarios: either the radiation field of the star cluster was sufficient to "illuminate" the gas or we must see the effect of a nearby star, an excitation of the gas by collisions with the local interstellar medium. Anyway, round chafing dish with glass lid the W26 observation confirms that loses some of its material and is terminally ill.
Astronomers studying this agony ultimate stages through which supergiants is fundamental for understanding the chemical evolution of galaxies. Because only these giant planets are able to synthesize in their thermonuclear furnaces, heavier chemical elements. While smaller stars that produce little carbon and oxygen, massive stars will seed the area of iron and silicon, which give the rocky planets. Understand how a supergiant dies, it is also understand where the Earth.
It is not necessarily "long dead" what characterizes astronomical phenomena is that everything is incomparably greater (sizes, distances, speeds, times ...), so it is a matter of difference of overall scale. We say that a star whose cycle is accomplished by "tens of millions of years" is ephemeral, but compared to that 12,000 years is nothing at all (less than one thousandth of the time) . At the same time, there is sometimes apparently sudden changes of scale: for example, the latest phase (the final collapse of the kernel itself), if I understand it's incredibly fast.
Hey Hey, Do not pack on the incredibly fast. The star is one billion kilometers in diameter which means when its outer layers will collapse it will light several minutes to go before the movement is reversed. As the movement does not happen to a human speed incredibly fast it is astronomical term ... Indeed even putting the atoms of the outer layer had 80% of the distance separating them from the center to go in 30 minutes put it would be a disaster causing a crazy kinetic energy round chafing dish with glass lid plus nuclear fusion etc. That is not to remove your incredibly fast but it can not