{"id":65003,"date":"2024-10-19T07:21:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-19T07:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/f4998514-2a27-42a6-b2a2-5c3f890ebde2"},"modified":"2024-10-19T07:39:37","modified_gmt":"2024-10-19T07:39:37","slug":"hubble-views-stellar-duos-destructive-dance-firing-material-into-space-at-1-million-miles-per-hour","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/rss_feed\/hubble-views-stellar-duos-destructive-dance-firing-material-into-space-at-1-million-miles-per-hour\/","title":{"rendered":"Hubble views stellar duo&#8217;s destructive dance, firing material into space at 1 million miles per hour"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"rssexcerpt\"> <\/p><p class=\"rssauthor\">By Iain Todd\n      <\/p><p class=\"rssbyline\">Published: Saturday, 19 October 2024 at 07:21 AM<\/p><hr class=\"no-tts wp-block-separator\"\/><?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-8\" standalone=\"yes\"?>\n<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><body><p>The Hubble Space Telescope has provided astronomers with an amazing view of a huge star that&#8217;s periodically exploding and ejecting loops and curls of plasma into space.<\/p><p>This explosive star is a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skyatnightmagazine.com\/advice\/double-binary-stars-guide\">binary star<\/a> system called R Aquarii located about 700 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skyatnightmagazine.com\/space-science\/lightyear\">lightyears<\/a> from Earth.<\/p><p>Of the two in the system, the primary star is a red giant \u2013 a bloated, aging star \u2013 while its companion is a compacted stellar husk known as a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skyatnightmagazine.com\/space-science\/white-dwarf\">white dwarf<\/a>.<\/p><div class=\"wp-block-columns highlight-box is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-layout-4 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-layout-6\"><div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\"><h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-heading\"><strong><strong>More amazing Hubble observations<\/strong><\/strong><\/h3><ul><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.skyatnightmagazine.com\/news\/hubble-saturn-ring-spokes\"><em><strong>Hubble observes Saturn&#8217;s ring spokes<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.skyatnightmagazine.com\/space-science\/hubble-centre-triangulum-galaxy\"><em><strong>Hubble views centre of Triangulum Galaxy<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.skyatnightmagazine.com\/news\/hubble-observations-novae-galaxy-m87\"><em><strong>Hubble sees stars exploding near black hole jets<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div><div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\"><figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Credit: NASA, ESA, M. Boyer (STScI), and J. Dalcanton (University of Washington); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA\/Catholic University of America)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div><\/div><p>The red giant is over 400 times larger than our Sun and pulsates, changes temperature and varies in brightness by a factor of over 750 times across a 390-day period.<\/p><p>It&#8217;s a class of stars known as a Mira variable star and, at its peak brightness, is 5,000 times brighter than our Sun.<\/p><figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"912\" src=\"https:\/\/c02.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/48\/2024\/10\/hubble-R-Aquarii.jpg\" alt=\"Hubble Space Telescope image of binary star system R Aquarii. Credit: NASA, ESA, Matthias Stute , Margarita Karovska , Davide De Martin (ESA\/Hubble), Mahdi Zamani (ESA\/Hubble)\" class=\"wp-image-163733\"\/><\/figure><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The binary star dance of destruction<\/strong><\/h2><p>Binary star systems like this involve two stars orbiting each other in a gravitational waltz.<\/p><p>When the white dwarf star in this system \u2013 which has an orbital period of 44 years \u2013 comes close to the red giant, its gravitational pull siphons hydrogen gas from the larger star.<\/p><p>Stellar material accumulates on the white dwarf&#8217;s surface and eventually causes spontaneous nuclear fusion, causing it to explode like a hydrogen bomb.<\/p><p>Then the fuelling begins anew.<\/p><figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Time-lapse: Evolution of R Aquarii (2014 to 2023)\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/cT8ISvc7mxs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\"\/><\/div><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><strong>Credit:<\/strong>NASA, ESA, M. Stute, M. Karovska,\u00a0 D. de Martin &amp; M. Zamani (ESA\/Hubble)<\/figcaption><\/figure><p>The effects of this can be seen in these new Hubble Space Telescope images and video of R Aquarii: filaments of material shoot out into space forming loops and curls.<\/p><p>This plasma is ejected, twisted by the sheer force of the explosion then channelled by the stars&#8217; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skyatnightmagazine.com\/space-science\/what-are-magnetic-fields-how-do-they-affect-universe\">magnetic fields<\/a>.<\/p><p>The plasma is travelling at over 1 million miles per hour, which astronomers say would take it from Earth to the Moon in 15 minutes.<\/p><p>What&#8217;s more, this violent act is distributing into the space the vital ingredients need for new stars to form.<\/p><p>In this way, such a catastrophic, destructive act will ultimately enable star formation to occur elsewhere in the Universe.<\/p><p><a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>science.nasa.gov<\/strong><\/a><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n<hr class=\"no-tts wp-block-separator\"\/>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Iain Todd Published: Saturday, 19 October 2024 at 07:21 AM The Hubble Space Telescope has provided astronomers with an amazing view of a huge star that&#8217;s periodically exploding and ejecting loops and curls of plasma into space. This explosive star is a binary star system called R Aquarii located about 700 lightyears from Earth. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":65004,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"2"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2024\/10\/hubble-views-stellar-duos-destructive-dance-firing-material-into-space-at-1-million-miles-per-hour.jpg",1200,912,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2024\/10\/hubble-views-stellar-duos-destructive-dance-firing-material-into-space-at-1-million-miles-per-hour-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2024\/10\/hubble-views-stellar-duos-destructive-dance-firing-material-into-space-at-1-million-miles-per-hour-300x228.jpg",300,228,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2024\/10\/hubble-views-stellar-duos-destructive-dance-firing-material-into-space-at-1-million-miles-per-hour-768x584.jpg",768,584,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2024\/10\/hubble-views-stellar-duos-destructive-dance-firing-material-into-space-at-1-million-miles-per-hour-1024x778.jpg",800,608,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2024\/10\/hubble-views-stellar-duos-destructive-dance-firing-material-into-space-at-1-million-miles-per-hour.jpg",1200,912,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2024\/10\/hubble-views-stellar-duos-destructive-dance-firing-material-into-space-at-1-million-miles-per-hour.jpg",1200,912,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Iain Todd Published: Saturday, 19 October 2024 at 07:21 AM The Hubble Space Telescope has provided astronomers with an amazing view of a huge star that&#8217;s periodically exploding and ejecting loops and curls of plasma into space. This explosive star is a binary star system called R Aquarii located about 700 lightyears from Earth.&hellip;","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/65003"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}