| Top 10 Star Mysteries |
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Top 10 Star Mysteries
By Jeanna Bryner
For many stargazers, the night sky might look like a backdrop of very
similar twinkling lights. But actually the billions of stars that make
up the universe are varied and full of tantalizing marvels. From
stellar fireworks caused by supernova explosions to invisible black
holes, astronomers are gradually figuring out how stars work and what
makes each variety unique. Many mysteries remain, however.
Number 10: Diamonds In the Sky
When a star the mass of our Sun uses up its nuclear fuel, it expels
most of its outer layers to leave just a very hot core called a white
31 mile (50 kilometer)-thick crust was crystallized carbon and oxygen,
similar to a diamond. And in 2004, they found that a white dwarf near
the constellation Centaurus, BPM 37093, was made of crystallized
carbon weighing 5 million trillion trillion pounds. In diamond-speak,
Number 9: Stellar Corpses
magnetic fields billions of times stronger than any magnet on Earth.
They release flashes of X-rays about every 10 seconds with an
type until 1998, nearly two decades after their telltale light shows
were first spotted: In March 1979, nine spacecraft observed a release
of radiation equaling the amount of energy the Sun lets off in a 1,000
years coming from the location of a supernova remnant called N49.
Number 8: Close Quarters
Stellar clusters are composed of many stars that develop at the same
time. Some contain several dozen stars, and others many million stars.
Some star clusters can be seen with the naked eye, such as the famous
Pleiades cluster in the constellation Taurus. Stars form in the same
region, but why some stay together forming clusters is a mystery.
Number 7: Stellar Rumbles
A starquake is thought to be the tearing apart of the surface of a
neutron star, much like an earthquake here on Earth. In 1999
astronomers identified these bursts as the cause of gamma rays and
X-rays coming from neutron stars. Predicting these powerful bursts has
remained a mystery. Recently, John Middleditch of Los Alamos National
Laboratory and his team found that for a particular type of spinning
neutron star called a pulsar, the time to the next quake is
proportional to the size of the last quake.
Number 6: Super Stars
A neutron star is born out of a supernova explosion, which compresses
with a diameter the size of a small city. One step from becoming black
holes, neutron stars are the densest objects in the universe. Just a
teaspoon would weigh roughly a billions tons on Earth. In 2005, NASA
scientists found the source of gamma-ray bursts that emit as much
neutron stars collided at speeds tens of thousands of miles per
second, they emit gamma-ray fireworks.
Number 5: Star Bursts
A new class of stars called rotating radio transients (RRATs) can be
fickle flashers. They are massively compressed neutron stars that
intermittently send out bursts of radio waves that can last for as few
as two milliseconds with dark gaps lasting as long as three hours. Not
only are these outbursts short-lived, in order to detect RRATs
astronomers must distinguish the fleeting radio flashes from
terrestrial radio interference. Even so, there could be hundreds of
thousands of them in the Milky Way.
Number 4: Singles Club?
Stars may not be loners, as once thought. Now astronomers predict that
85 percent of the stars in the Milky Way galaxy reside in
multiple-star systems. More than half of all stars are binary stars,
or two stars that are bound by their mutual gravitational attraction,
with each star orbiting around the center of mass. When three or more
astronomers presented evidence for the first planet orbiting a binary
system.
Number 3: Enigmatic Explosions
The catastrophic explosion of a star sends out shock waves that
radiate outward at 22 million mph (35 million kph). The end of life
for some stars can be a spectacular event. Called a supernova, when a
propels jets of high-energy light and matter out into space. Since
witnessed one in our own galaxy.
Number 2: Sun Rays
degrees F (2 million degrees C), and can unpredictably fling out
streams of high-energy particles at near light-speed. Called solar
flares, these bundles of charged particles accelerate along curved
magnetic field lines toward Earth, where they can disrupt
communications and satellite technology, electronic devices, and even
cell phones. The largest solar flares can release millions of hydrogen
for 100,000 years if it could be harnessed. Astronomers are just
beginning to understand the inner workings of the sun, with the goal
of predicting these fiery flares.
Number 1: Grim Reapers
Black holes are so dense that nothing can escape from their
gravitational clutches. Once past the event horizon, or the boundary
astronomers have strong evidence for the existence of stellar black
holes, which form from the collapse of massive stars, as well as
super-massive black holes that reach jaw-dropping weights of millions
of solar masses.
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