Irish astronomers snap most detailed image ever of another star
21 replies, posted
[IMG]https://www.siliconrepublic.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Betelgeuse-1.jpg[/IMG]
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A team of Irish astronomers have managed to capture an image of unprecedented detail of another star – that isn’t the sun – called Betelgeuse.
NASA recently announced a new mission to launch the Parker Solar Probe to ‘touch the sun’ in order to better understand its complex and peculiar outer atmosphere, but when it comes to other stars in the universe it gets a lot trickier.
However, a team of Irish astronomers from the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies (DIAS) led by Eamon O’Gorman has now given us our best glimpse yet of a stellar body outside of our own solar system.
Using the world’s largest radio telescope – the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA) in Chile – the DIAS team has managed to make the most detailed image of the surface of the red supergiant, Betelgeuse.
Located in the constellation of Orion approximately 650 light years away, Betelgeuse is absolutely enormous, being about 1,400 times larger than the sun and more than 1bn times larger in terms of volume.
Typically, stars of a similar size to Betelgeuse tend to expel an enormous amount of energy back into the interstellar medium via stellar winds that can help seed the next generation of stars and planets.
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[url]https://www.siliconrepublic.com/innovation/most-detailed-image-betelgeuse[/url]
Hopefully we get to see planets in the near future
It's like an egg yolk
Oh Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse... You look like a red hot nickel ball from this picture. And not a thing like Michael Keaton.
650 light-[I][B]years[/B][/I] away? God damn..
[QUOTE=Laserbeams;52402785]It's like an egg yolk[/QUOTE]
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/zNVItit.png[/IMG]
i accidentally crated a shitty emoji
[QUOTE=Laserbeams;52402785]It's like an egg yolk[/QUOTE]
Many stars, once they start getting to -that- kind of size, are not uniform and are pretty misshapen.
Neat!
this is amazing. Ø
If all they wanted to do was photograph another star, why not choose something that's not 650 light years away? Why not Proxima Centauri, or one of the other two stars in the Alpha Centauri system, or any other star that's relatively close?
[QUOTE=*Freezorg*;52403314]If all they wanted to do was photograph another star, why not choose something that's not 650 light years away? Why not Proxima Centauri, or one of the other two stars in the Alpha Centauri system, or any other star that's relatively close?[/QUOTE]
Maybe they determined that would appear largest by balancing distance+actual star size
[editline]26th June 2017[/editline]
It would probably be harder to image a star 1/10 the size at 100 light years Etc
[QUOTE=*Freezorg*;52403314]If all they wanted to do was photograph another star, why not choose something that's not 650 light years away? Why not Proxima Centauri, or one of the other two stars in the Alpha Centauri system, or any other star that's relatively close?[/QUOTE]
Probably the size of it. Alpha Centauri apparently has 3 stars -- 2 of which are close to our sun's mass/temperature, and one red dwarf.
Betelgeuse is [I]huge[/I]. It's not the biggest star we've found, but due to its relatively close proximity, luminescence, and size, it's fairly easy to spot.
[IMG]http://www.pagalparrot.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Betelgeuse-star_forcetoknow.com_.jpg[/IMG]
I can't wait to see how the same star will look like when the James Webb Telescope begins operating.
What is the white highlight?
[QUOTE=Abaddabadon;52403566]I can't wait to see how the same star will look like when the James Webb Telescope begins operating.[/QUOTE]
The James Webb is optimized for visible and infrared light if I recall correctly. This image was produced with radio waves. It won't image Betelgeuse in any higher detail than this, but it will likely make some very stunning Hubble-like images of larger slices of space.
[QUOTE=RobL;52403867]What is the white highlight?[/QUOTE]
It's the sun's reflection, duh!
Can't wait for these images to get clearer and clearer. I want to see a distant star in HD in my lifetime damnit.
[QUOTE=Laserbeams;52402785]It's like an egg yolk[/QUOTE]
Check out this [url=http://www.astro.uu.se/~bf/movie/dst35gm04n26/st35gm04n26_I1blm.mpg]animation[/url] of a red supergiant. They are not even like our small sun, but bulging rippling balls.
[QUOTE=Orkel;52404215]Check out this [url=http://www.astro.uu.se/~bf/movie/dst35gm04n26/st35gm04n26_I1blm.mpg]animation[/url] of a red supergiant. They are not even like our small sun, but bulging rippling balls.[/QUOTE]
That's amazing. You'd think a star would get more spherical from the extra mass as it got bigger. There must be some insane energy boiling in that thing.
Does it look distorted because the image is imperfect, or because it's on the verge of going super nova?
[QUOTE=Thaggers;52404228]That's amazing. You'd think a star would get more spherical from the extra mass as it got bigger. There must be some insane energy boiling in that thing.[/QUOTE]
I think the larger a star gets, the larger its convection cells become. Here's a simulation of the surface of a red giant:
[video=youtube;hJn-jmL_hyo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJn-jmL_hyo[/video]
[QUOTE=*Freezorg*;52403314]If all they wanted to do was photograph another star, why not choose something that's not 650 light years away? Why not Proxima Centauri, or one of the other two stars in the Alpha Centauri system, or any other star that's relatively close?[/QUOTE]
Other than the Sun and R Doradus, I believe Betelgeuse has the largest angular diameter of any star as viewed from Earth.
[QUOTE=Thaggers;52404228]That's amazing. You'd think a star would get more spherical from the extra mass as it got bigger. There must be some insane energy boiling in that thing.[/QUOTE]
Betelgeuse is 7.7 times as massive as our sun but ~19,200 times the radius! These very large stars are actually just extremely low-density, at least compared to main sequence stars.
