Tag: Stars
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Friday Big-A$$ Explosion Open Comments
About 3.8 billion years ago, things in the constellation Draco (the Dragon) got a little bit interesting. Although research is ongoing, astronomers say that the unusual explosion likely arose when a star wandered too close to its galaxy’s central black hole. Intense tidal forces probably tore the star apart, and the infalling gas continues to…
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Monday You Are Not The Center Of The Universe Open Comments
You are not the center of the universe. You live on a speck sitting on a mote of dust on a grain of sand on the Ipanema Beach that is the universe. This wouldn’t be complete without showing the source of my analogy. Note: Video is work-safe. Contains Girls From Ipanema. (Rrrrroooowwwwwrrrr…)
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Friday Feeling Small Open Comments
Want to feel utterly insignificant? The image below zooms to scales of ~10ly (light-years) to ~1,000,000,000ly. The graphic below shows an area with a radius of approximately 50,000ly around us. There are about 200,000,000,000 stars in that volume of space. Click around a bit. It should give you a little perspective.