Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Dying Star Mimics Our Sun's Death

Posted by kdawson on Wednesday December 16, @02:59AM
from the telltale-heart dept.
coondoggie writes"In about 5 billion years, our Sun will face a nasty death. Scientists with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics this week releaseddramatic new pictures of a dying star much like the Sun, about 550 light-years from Earth. According to the researchers, Chi Cygni has swollen in size to become a red giant star so large that if it were in our solar system it would swallow every planet out to Mars and cook the asteroid belt. The star has started to pulse dramatically, beating like a giant heart with a period of 408 days."The research team produced a video of the pulsating star, using infrared images captured via very long baseline interferometry.

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