Features: Magazine | Literary Review | Life | Metro Plus | Open Page | Education Plus | Book Review | Business | SciTech | Friday Review | Young World | Property Plus | Quest | Folio |

Star of wonder

A distant star that hurtles through space at extraordinary speeds has a huge, comet-like tail trailing in its wake, say astronomers. The appendage, which measures a colossal 13 light years in length, was spotted by Nasa’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer (Galex) space telescope. The researchers said that nothing like it had ever been spotted around a star. Scientist Mark Seibert said, “This is an utterly new phenomenon to us, and we are still in the process of underst anding the physics involved.” Mira (also called Mira A) has captivated astronomers for more than 400 years. Billions of years ago, Mira would have been much like our Sun, but now it has swollen into a type of star known as a red giant. As it races through space at 130km/s (80 miles per second) it sheds vast amounts of material.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail