Have you ever paid any attention to the ruby monster Antares ? At a coup d’oeil , it ’s nothing extra : it ’s the 15th - brilliant mavin in the night sky , appears a little red when look at with the naked eye , and sits in the configuration of Scorpius . It ’s sometimes consult to as the “ heart of the Scorpio ” .
So far , so ordinary – except that , as let on in a newNaturestudy , we ’ve now got the best view of this star than any other in the universe with the sole exception of our own local funeral pyre .
Rather wonderfully , aside from being a magnificent image , scientists have also discovered some rather unknown current whirl around on its surface , and at present , they have no idea what they are .
The crimson supergiant , which is roughly 12.4 times the mass of our Sun and about 883 times as full , is about 550 light - years from Earth . A rather sinewy optical telescope was require to see it , which was why it was image using the European Southern Observatory’sVery Large Telescope(VLT ) , in Chile .
Without a doubtfulness , this is the human race ’s most cutting - sharpness visible - light astronomical lookout . Rather than just one twist , the VLT is indite of four different telescopes . When the light discover by each is conflate , it forms a far high resolution picture than any individual scope could ever hope for .
Pointing it at the Scorpion ’s heart , a serial of images were capture . It ’s refreshful to see actual look-alike of a distant whiz rather than a pixelated pickle or yet another creative person ’s depression alone , but why was Antares pick in the first place ?
As the researchers from the Catholic University of the North in Chile and the Max Plank Institute for Radio Astronomy explain in their paper , this red supergiant is losing lot rapidly as it go up the oddment of its biography , which will terminate in a striking supernova .
Although the initiation behind ace end are comparatively well known , the cognitive process of shedding solar deal is n’t , and this endeavor was partly designed to reply that question .
or else , it ’s actually brought up more interrogative sentence . The star ’s upper ambience is convecting , which is perfectly normal for a champion – hotter masses rise , cool , then sink again or drift off into space . However , it appear that the surface of the headliner is really too turbulent .
prodigious bunch of star poppycock are moving at speed of up to 20 kilometers ( 12.4 miles ) per second , and the researchers simply do n’t have a clue as to how .
“ Convection alone can not explain the observed turbulent move and atmospheric extension , suggesting that an unidentified process is operating in the lengthened atmosphere , ” the generator reason in their study .
As ever , there are more things in heaven and Earth than are dream of in our doctrine .
