Perspective

[Elie]

Check out the following screens, interesting how small we really are in this universe!

Antares is the 15th brightest star in the sky, It is more than 1000 light years away.

[KvHagedorn]

Pretty neat.. where did you find those pics?

[Elie]

My friend e-mailed the set, don't know who he got it from, anyway I thought it was interesting enough to share.

[KvHagedorn]

Very cool, thanks!

I remember seeing a pic once depicting Betelgeuse engulfing the orbit of Mars.

[Jessterw]

Very, very cool! It's just awe inspiring that there exists solar bodies as big as Antares, let alone the galaxy engulfing bodies of plasma, gas, or whatnot.

[Fluff]

Amazing how small our planet is compared to the rest of the universe / other celestial objects. It is quite sad that we are fighting, when there is the possibility that this is the ONLY planet that we will ever have a chance on.

Good set of pics.

Why are the suns different colours?

[lowlifecat]

Amazing how small our planet is compared to the rest of the universe / other celestial objects. It is quite sad that we are fighting, when there is the possibility that this is the ONLY planet that we will ever have a chance on.

Good set of pics.

Why are the suns different colours?

dude, that's like asking 'why are the planets different colours?'

[Fluff]

[Dr Mordrid]

Why are the suns different colours?

A stars type and color depends on its surface temperature. The sun is a type G.

As a star uses up its nuclear fuel it cools and expands in size. Eventually a star will, depending on its mass, either blow off its outer layers & collapse into a white dwarf or go supernova then collapse into a neutron star (mostly neutrons), strange star (free quarks, making it a giant hadron) or black hole.

If it's mass is more than a few solar masses it's likely to become a black hole.

[gt40]

Answer: I see Uranus is pretty small.
Question: A line you might here in a gay pron movie.

[KvHagedorn]

How about..

Uranus is purple and surrounded by gas.. and MOONs..

[Fluff]

Could a star get so hot / have so much energy it didn't have a visible colour i.e. on the way to predominantly gamma and x-ray emissions?

[Dr Mordrid]

All stars produce gamma rays and the hotter they are the more they produce. Flares produce huge gamma bursts. Some planetary nebula cores contracting into a white dwarf emit mainly UV and presumably some could emit mainly x-rays.

Then there are Anomalous X-ray Pulsars (AXP); magnetars (highly magnetized neutron stars) that project x-ray beams from their poles.

The things that produce x-rays in mass quantities are;

1. a black hole sucking matter in from its accretion disk. The particles accelerate to near relativistic speeds radiate strongly.

2. a nova; a neutron star sucks in matter from a companion star until it compresses enough for a thermonuclear explosion. After the explosion the cycle repeats.

3. a supernova. Boom.

4. a quasar; a supermassive black hole at the center of a galaxy sucking in whole star systems.

5. colliding neutron stars or a neutron star/black hole collision.

6. strangelets (fragments of a strange star) colliding with normal matter.

Side point: researchers at SMU reported the possibility that strangelets may have been responsible for two unexplained seismic events on October 22, 1993 and November 24, 1993. They believe that 2 strangelets traveling at ~400 km/s passed through Earth, generating shock waves along their paths. Some are proposing that the nuclear test ban sensors be used as a 'strangelet observatory' to explore the possibility.

[Jammrock]

Good gravy! Antares looks like it's the size of our entire solar system. Astrophysists aren't joking when they call them red giants.

[Dr Mordrid]

Prepare yourself: the sun will become a red giant about the diameter of Betelgeuse or a bit larger when it starts to run out of fuel. Then it'll collapse into a white dwarf while blowing off most of its mass into a planetary nebula;