The Hubble Telescope is still alive and well, although no space shuttle has managed to go and fix it anymore. Each year we celebrate its launch into orbit, and on its 31st anniversary, Hubble painted a picture of one of the rarest and brightest stars in the local galaxy cluster.
You will also be interested
[EN VIDÉO] Hubble: His Ten Discoveries in Video! As Hubble celebrates three decades of good and sincere service, we invite you to take a look at the key discoveries that have marked his career. Thanks to the millions of observations made since its launch, the space telescope has already revolutionized our basic understanding of the universe.
It’s been a tradition for quite some time now, NASA andWhich – which Celebrate every year Anniversary of the arrival of the Hubble Space Telescope into spaceApril 24, 1990. Orbit This eye was carried out from the noosphere at that time by the US space shuttle Discovery. As usual, the images captured with Hubble in the spotlight related to one of about 48,000 celestial bodies were the subject of some of the more than 1.5 million observations during the more than 181,000 Hubble orbits around our blue planet.
This year, it is one of the cosmic wild animal monsters that has been introduced: AG Karina. In the Milky Way, about 20,000 light years away from Earth, the star is a million times brighter than the star. Solly And it contains at least 70 solar masses. It is located in the constellation Karina. But despite its strong brilliance, it is usually invisible to the naked eye because its great distance means so much Interstellar clouds Come between us and her. However, he is a variable star, which he eventually makes Apparent size It varies sporadically between magnitude 5.7 and 9.0.
The life expectancy of the star AG Carinae ranges between 5 million and 6 million years. It has been in unstable equilibrium for thousands of years and in a constant fight between the pressure of its gravitational pull that tends to compress it and the flow of radiation produced in its core by thermonuclear reactions that tend to detonate it. Sometimes the flux wins and an explosion of matter arises, which leads to the formation of a nebula around the star. She is in the spotlight in this video marking Hubble’s 31st anniversary in Earth orbit. The photos were taken in visible and ultraviolet light. For a fairly accurate French translation, click on the white rectangle in the lower right. English translation should appear after that. Then click on the nut to the right of the rectangle, then click on “Subtitles” and finally on “Automatically translate”. Choose “French”. © NASA, The European Space Agency’s Hubble Space Telescope
AG Carinae, a very rare blue light variant
One of his peculiarities, which justify his presentation today in memory of Hubble, is that he is surrounded by nebula Its radius is a few light years and it is estimated to have about 10 to 15 solar masses. This nebula is clearly the product of strong instability that has resulted in massive and rapid ejection of the upper layers of AG Carinae. A simple form of this package and measure Speeds from Thing In the nebula it indicates that the massive eruption in its origin occurred about 10,000 years ago.
This behavior is not surprising since we know that AG Carinae is a blue light variant (in English, Illuminated blue variable Or LBV), actor stars Type of variables S. Doradus Or the Hubble-Sandage variant. S Doradus is located in the Kinman dwarf galaxy, about 75 million light-years away in the constellation Aquarius. It was used to classify these huge and extremely rare blue variable stars, which were first observed and indexed by Edwin Hubble And the Alan Sandage In 1953, in the Andromeda galaxy. And it is really rare because about fifty galaxies are known among our galaxies Local group Neighboring galaxies (there are undoubtedly more, but they are undeniably a minority).
Since AG Carinae is a very massive star, it burns its thermonuclear fuel at breakneck speed, and although it is only a few million years old, it does not have a very long time to explode which makes an amazing impression. Supernova. Meanwhile, its nebula is being formed by Slots Stars that could emit AG Carinae, some of which can reach speeds of up to one million kilometers per hour.
Interested in what you just read?
“Professional food nerd. Internet scholar. Typical bacon buff. Passionate creator.”
