Awesome death spiral of a bizarre star

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/cef6bb997125.jpg[/atsimg]

SOURCE

The name of this thing is AFGL 3068. It’s been known as a bright infrared source for some time, but images just showed it as a dot. This Hubble image using the Advanced Camera for Surveys reveals an intricate, delicate and exceedingly faint spiral pattern. It’s so faint no one has ever detected it before!

So what’s going on here? First off, this is not a spiral galaxy! It’s a binary star*, two stars that orbit each other, located about 3000 light years away from us. One of the stars is what’s called a carbon star, similar to the Sun but much older. The Sun is still happily fusing hydrogen into helium in its core, but older stars run out of available hydrogen. Eventually, they fuse helium into carbon. When this happens the star swells up and becomes a red giant (note: that’s the brief version; the actual events are a tad more complicated).

Wow! simply amazing! Its always good to be reminded that theirs always new things to discover out there!
More info at the source link!

-Side note- Does it bring back memories of the Norway spiral for anyone else?

[edit on 9/6/2010 by VonDoomen]

That's interesting. They said it was never detected before because it was so faint and they believe this phenomenon has always existed and occurred but we've been unable to observe it. A confirmation of a theory deserves a

On a less serious note, maybe the Norway spiral took some time to activate this spiral. it also reminds me of this.

Looks like a "star" has popped outta a Black hole?!

or is that just me??

Space - the final frontier!

Pretty cool. Thanks for sharing.

It also reminded me alot of the Blue Norway Spiral Incident.

It reminds me of Chesley Bonestell's painting of Beta Lyrae

www.bonestell.org...
Chesley Bonestell Archives
Bonestell Space Art GIS

Good find!

The stars amaze us all.

I must say that once again the universe has found a way to make me smile. Despite it being in it's death throes it still pulls off an interesting image of a spiral.

Ok, first off S & F for find OP!

Here is my take, although somewhat crazy but bare with me here. What if (and this is a big if) these two spirals are connected? What if the Norway Spiral was actually leftover matter from a wormhole? and this new Spiral, was its exit?

Think about it, the Norway Spiral occurred within our atmosphere allowing it to dissipate quickly, this new spiral which has occurred within the vacuum of space, has been allow to consistently expand to the point where we can actually view it from Earth. This would make sense given that the Norway Spiral occurred during early summer late spring, and the process of traveling through a wormhole should be considered instantaneous this would allow ample time for the exit spiral to expand.

Like i said crazy, but slightly plausible no?

Lakai

reply to post by Lakai.Limited


No.
It's simply rings made by a rotating body as it gives off gas, or particles.
Nothing new age here, move along please. (said with a British cop accent)

reply to post by Toadmund


Yeah ill go right ahead and do that thanks.
2nd,

reply to post by Lakai.Limited


Hmmm, sorry to be rude, but I did not mean to be.

I've explored the realm of new age-y thinking when I was younger, then I got older and realized most of it was Bull$#1+.

So, when I see a young buck being consumed with wishful make believe, my instinct is to poo poo that thinking process.
See, I did a lot of thinking like that, but I snapped out of it.

Life ruins everything.

Sorry

That spiral and the Norway spiral are the result of spinning objects giving off material while they spin, even though the Norway spiral does raise questions, it's a plausible explanation.

That makes sense, 'spinning' high-frequency electromagnetic energy radiates a 'spiral pattern' with photons when a wormhole is created. You two put together has some promise.