Runaway star plows through space
January 25, 2011 By Whitney Clavin
The blue star near the center of this image is Zeta Ophiuchi. When seen in visible light it appears as a relatively dim red star surrounded by other dim stars and no dust. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA
(PhysOrg.com) -- A massive star flung away from its former companion is plowing through space dust. The result is a brilliant bow shock, seen here as a yellow arc in a new image from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE.
The star, named Zeta Ophiuchi, is huge, with a mass of about 20 times that of our sun. In this image, in which infrared light has been translated into visible colors we see with our eyes, the star appears as the blue dot inside the bow shock.
Zeta Ophiuchi once orbited around an even heftier star. But when that star exploded in a supernova, Zeta Ophiuchi shot away like a bullet. It's traveling at a whopping 54,000 miles per hour (or 24 kilometers per second), and heading toward the upper left area of the picture.
As the star tears through space, its powerful winds push gas and dust out of its way and into what is called a bow shock. The material in the bow shock is so compressed that it glows with infrared light that WISE can see. The effect is similar to what happens when a boat speeds through water, pushing a wave in front of it.
This bow shock is completely hidden in visible light. Infrared images like this one from WISE are therefore important for shedding new light on the region.
Provided by
JPL/NASA
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Jan 25, 2011
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Jan 25, 2011
Rank: 4.2 / 5 (5)
You should jump off of a 26 story building and see if God saves you then.. but then again, you were never in control of your destiny so your life is meaningless. GG, noob.
Jan 25, 2011
Rank: 5 / 5 (2)
Jan 25, 2011
Rank: 5 / 5 (5)
Jan 25, 2011
Rank: 1 / 5 (3)
The Sun moves around the galaxy at 220km/s ten times faster than that. The Sun moves 20km/s relative to background stars, which means this star is only moving 4km/s above the AVERAGE for stars relative to the Sun.
How big do they allege a supernova would need to be to accelerate a star by 4km/s.
To cause that acceleration, you would need to convert 1.68E20kg of matter to energy, all in the form of work, and all hitting the target star.
then consider what the radius of a 20Sol star would be, and it must have been in a stable orbit around the other alleged star at a distance greater than 28a.u., or 4.28 billion km.
Then if the ejected star has a radius of a half-billion km,3.3au, the supernova would need to convert 1.23E28kg of matter to energy which can do work, expanding in a shell, and then 100% of the energy which hit the star actually did work.
This is instantaneous conversion of 1% solar mass to kinetic energy.
Jan 25, 2011
Rank: 1 / 5 (3)
So if the star was 1 a.u. in radius the supernova exploded with the force of 1.33E29kg of annihilation, all in the form of "work", or about 1/10th solar mass converted directly to energy as work.
If the star was 0.1a.u. radius, 300,000,000km radius, the supernova exploded with the force of 1.33E31kg of annihilation, or 10 solar masses were converted directly to work in the expanding shell of debris.
It was more likely ejected gravitationally, as any supernova of this size having happened during the history of life on earth would have extinguished said life on earth, and everywhere else in the galaxy too.
Massive star can't be more thana few millions years old even by mainstream theory...
Jan 25, 2011
Rank: 5 / 5 (3)
So much wasting of mental energy, entropy wins again!
Jan 25, 2011
Rank: 1 / 5 (3)
If the ejected star has a cross sectional radius of 1a.u then the supernova would need to be 200Sol.
If the ejected star's cross section is any smaller, you quickly exceed mainstream theoretical limits on the mass of a star. i.e.
at 0.1a.u. of cross section for the ejected star, you'd need an exploding star of 20,000 Solar masses, which greatly exceeds the mass of any known or theorized non-SMBH object...
Jan 25, 2011
Rank: 2.3 / 5 (3)
Because god moves in mysterious ways! Duh!
Jan 25, 2011
Rank: 5 / 5 (5)
Um, I'm pretty sure that the speed of the star is due to it losing its companion. You see, it was orbiting (at high velocity) another star, which blew up, flinging this star away at high speed. Like a sling. I don't think the explosion fired the star like a bullet, which is what your calculations are based on...
Jan 25, 2011
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Jan 25, 2011
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Jan 25, 2011
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Jan 25, 2011
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Without doing work proportional to mass, how would it overcome the gravity well and obtain escape velocity of the other star's gravity well at a given distance?
In any case, super massive stars like this are supposedly very young, even by mainstream theory standards, so the alleged supernova would have had to occur very recently.
Jan 25, 2011
Rank: 5 / 5 (4)
Think about what happens to the mass distribution of the companion star after the supernova. Much of it would be spread out into nebula. The nebula would have a much weaker gravity well than the original star.
Jan 25, 2011
Rank: 5 / 5 (4)
Consider that the two stars are gravitationally bound to each other, through their two masses.
If one star goes supernova, how much of its mass is suddenly ejected, and how much is that star's gravity reduced thereby?
It's just like paulipease said, and would amount to the same thing as cutting or letting loose the cord holding a revolved object.
Jan 26, 2011
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"Warp Nine Mr. Scott!"
"Aye Captain, but She can't take much more. She's coming apart at the seams!"
Jan 26, 2011
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Jan 26, 2011
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Jan 26, 2011
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Jan 30, 2011
Rank: 1 / 5 (1)
No insult btw, simply too many people with something to say while saying nothing.
Jan 31, 2011
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Jan 31, 2011
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@71STARS,
Barnard's Star is an ancient(~10 Gyo) red *dwarf* star ~0.15 times the mass of the sun. QC is correct(!) regarding the lifetime of *supergiant* stars. Zeta Ophiuchi is a blue supergiant star ~20 times as massive as our sun. The star is estimated to be about halfway through its estimated 8 million year lifetime on the main sequence. The article notes that the now missing partner to Zeta Oph was more massive still (and hence had an equally short lifetime).
You're comparison of supergiant stars to dwarf stars is apples and oranges.
Jan 31, 2011
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