the-future-now: Scientists just spotted an adorable star that…

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the-future-now:

Scientists just spotted an adorable star that barely even qualifies as one

  • Sometimes, scientists’ categories for things can be a little demeaning. For example: the “failed star” designation for objects that are larger than planets but smaller than stars.
  • About 600 light-years away, EBLM J0555-57Ab just barely missed the failed star category. But as will be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, it’s just a hair over the boundary, making it one of the smallest stars we know of.
  • “Failed star” is actually a factual statement — it just means something isn’t large enough to manage to bang hydrogen atoms together to form helium, the basic process at the heart of a burning star.
  • EBLM J0555-57Ab looks a bit like it shouldn’t have made the cut: It’s only a tiny bit larger than Saturn, or about one-twelfth the size of our sun. Read more (7/12/17)

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cosmicvastness: Zeta Oph: Runaway Star  Like a ship plowing…

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cosmicvastness:

Zeta Oph: Runaway Star 

Like a ship plowing through cosmic seas, runaway star Zeta Ophiuchi produces the arcing interstellar bow wave or bow shock seen in this stunning infrared portrait. In the false-color view, bluish Zeta Oph, a star about 20 times more massive than the Sun, lies near the center of the frame, moving toward the left at 24 kilometers per second. Its strong stellar wind precedes it, compressing and heating the dusty interstellar material and shaping the curved shock front.

What set this star in motion? Zeta Oph was likely once a member of a binary star system, its companion star was more massive and hence shorter lived. When the companion exploded as a supernova catastrophically losing mass, Zeta Oph was flung out of the system. About 460 light-years away, Zeta Oph is 65,000 times more luminous than the Sun and would be one of the brighter stars in the sky if it weren’t surrounded by obscuring dust. The image spans about 1.5 degrees or 12 light-years at the estimated distance of Zeta Ophiuchi.

Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, Spitzer Space Telescope

sixpenceee:This is a bubble snail known as a Miniature Melo…

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sixpenceee:

This is a bubble snail known as a Miniature Melo (Micromelo undata) which shares the same class (Gastropoda) as the nudibranchs. The oval bubble-shaped shell is thin and fragile and is actually too small to contain the soft body of the snail. Therefore, the colorful snail has to rely on swimming and camouflage to avoid being eaten. The Miniature Melo eats small toxic worms and incorporates the poison into their tissues as a defense mechanism. (Source)