Destroyer of worlds: Astronomers overlaid 11 time lapse images of the rotating star system WR 104 to reveal a 30 billion-kilometre-long tail that billows out in a spiral around it.
Credit: University of Sydney
SYDNEY: A spectacular, rotating binary star system is a ticking time bomb, ready to throw out a searing beam of high-energy gamma rays – and Earth may be right in the line of fire.
Astronomers at the University of Sydney, in Australia, first discovered the unusual and beguilingly beautiful star system eight years ago in the Constellation Sagittarius. One member of the pair is a highly unstable star known as a Wolf-Rayet, thought to be the final stage of stellar evolution to precede a cataclysmic supernova explosion.
"When it finally explodes as a supernova, it could emit an intense beam of gamma rays coming our way", said Peter Tuthill, lead researcher of the team that report their findings in the current Astrophysical Journal.
Vast and glowing plume
At a distance of 8,000 light-years from Earth, the pair of stars are a short hop away in galactic terms, and just one quarter of the way to the centre of our Milky Way galaxy.
The researchers took images of the system, known as WR 104, over a period of eight years using Hawaii's Keck Telescope. These images reveal a vast and glowing plume of heated dust and gas, billowing out in a spiral as the stars rotate once every eight months. This 'tail' is up to 30 billion kilometres long.
But something curious about the images caught the attention of the experts.
"Viewed from Earth, the rotating tail appears to be laid out on the sky in an almost perfect spiral. It could only appear like that if we are looking nearly exactly down on the axis of the binary system," said Tuthill.
This means we are peering down the barrel of the gun, as when binary supernovae go off, all their energy is focussed into a narrow beam of wildly destructive gamma ray radiation that emanates (both up and down) from the poles of the system.
"If such a gamma-ray burst happens, we really do not want Earth to be in the way," he said. "I used to appreciate this spiral just for its beautiful form, but now I can't help a twinge of feeling that it is uncannily like looking down a rifle barrel."
om
omg
A fool has said in his heart ...
That there is no God. Your desperate attempts to remove the creator from the heavenly creation have been unsuccessful. All your study, your passion is only appreciation of his handiwork. Once you see this, he can reveal more to you .. if this is a quest for knowledge, it begins and ends only at his feet.
Sagittarius, "The Archer" zaps earth
You say:
"it is strangely co-incidental that the source of this damaging shot of gamma rays will eventually come out of Sagittarius, "The Archer"
I say:
What about the crab constellation will we also get our finger pinched by the crab.
Religion is mythology just like the Greeks had their gods, we have our new version western man-god. You should read the book, Jesus mysteries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jesus_Mysteries
Please do not confuse mythology with science, it will only confuse the audience.
Holy paranoia batman.
Holy paranoia batman.
"All of the ancient cultures
"All of the ancient cultures of the earth had identical zodiacs . . ."
That's patently false, and the rest of your post falls like a house a cards.
the dog ate my giro
What about precession? That would be more like to take the earth out of the line of fire faster than proper motion, I would think. And a study of precession would tell us a lot about the gravitational goings-on in that part of the galaxy.
Monster rain!!!
Let's get under the porch and save each other from the deadly gammas!!!
Ramone A. Frunkis
Relative motion of our system and deathstar will save us
good question. otherway, i think this article is great!
thanks!
Roberto
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we might be thousands of
we might be thousands of light years away but this means nothing since when we look out into space we are seeing the past and not in actually what is presently happening. so really the binary starts could have already exploded and are in fact on its way here. only thing is the light and radiation has not reached us yet so we have not detected this. basically just because we dont see the bullet coming does not mean its not already on its way. BTW the revolution will not be televised nor will our destruction.
Re:
The researchers took images of the system, known as WR 104, over a period of eight years using Hawaii's Keck Telescope. These images reveal a vast and glowing plume of heated dust and gas, billowing out in a spiral as the stars rotate once every eight months. This 'tail' is up to 30 billion kilometres long.
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