NASA's FUSE Satellite Catches Collision of Titans

[bizarro (Greg)]

Hi All,

Came across this interesting story about two stars that will merge in the LMC and create something similar to Eta Carinae. All we have to do is wait a million years to see it.

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/...se_titans.html

Cheers,
Greg

[erick (Eric)]

Thanks Greg, that is interesting.

What fascinates me the most is......

"The system, known as LH54-425, is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way. The binary consists of two O-stars, the most massive and luminous types of stars in the Universe. ...... With a combined mass of about 100 suns, the system is one the most extreme binaries known."

......the word "known". It is surely most probable that out there, in galaxies farther away that the humble LMC, binary systems exist which put this one to shame. And this one is amazing enough!

Ain't the universe an incredible place!

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

Gee I love the mind-boggling figures in Astronomy:

"The more massive star is shedding material at a rate of 500 trillion tons per second (about 400 times greater than the rate the sun loses mass through the solar wind), with a speed of 5.4 million miles per hour."

[bizarro (Greg)]

The numbers are amazing. Although we can take measurements and do the math it's still hard to comprehend what's happening with numbers of that magnitude.