Wednesday, April 25, 2012

VY Canis Majoris

Our sun in comparison to just a small section of this enormous
star. If you were to carry it out past the edge of the screen, you'd
see how ridiculously huge this star happens to be.
VY Canis Majoris is the largest star ever discovered. I was watching this show called "How the Universe Works" narrated by Mike Rowe, and I really enjoyed the explanation they had of VY Canis Majoris. Basically, it's a dying star. What keeps it burning at its center is a fusion reactor. Think of hydrogen bombs going off and you essentially understand the reaction taking place in the heart of stars.

So the thing that keeps a star from just flying apart is gravity. In the case of VY Canis Majoris, there is so much mass that when the fusion stops going, gravity is just going to kind of take over and crush the core of the star into a black hole.  Black holes are things that our brightest physicists don't really understand.  Places where infinite gravity takes over and time stops and light can't even escape.
So in the center of VY Canis Majoris, a black hole will eventually form. When that happens, it will consume the star from the inside. But it will do so incredibly fast, like a glutton, too fast that all of the colliding matter will explode in this thing called a hypernova. A hypernova produces more energy in a second than our sun will produce in its entire lifetime. That's just mind-boggling.

24 comments:

  1. I always found things like this so fascinating. As a little kid I saved up money to buy a telescope, and I watched shows about this stuff every chance I got. Stars this massive show you just how small our little world is. I love it!

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  2. That's a big star - bigger than our own galaxy.

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  3. I love watching shows like that and like Mike Rowe as well. I usually see him on that other show about the undesirable jobs.

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  4. I remember in science class they said our sun will first expand, destroying the first three planets (which includes Earth) and eventually contracting into a white dwarf before it burns out. Or something like that. Though that's not for five billion years, give or take a few million years.

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  5. It's a billion miles wide? That's one gigantic star.

    And it produces over 100 times more energy out sun produces over its lifetime????

    Mind-boggling indeed!!!

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  6. ooh this is awesome and totally reminds me that i want to do a Wednesday Weird post on Nemesis, our solar system's probable second sun.
    Space rocks

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  7. No doubt; definitely a wild thought Michael.

    That Mike Rowe has a great voice--he sure stays busy.

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  8. Is that the guy who does those Ford commercials or whatever? Now I'm picturing him asking us to trade our star for a little bit: "How do you like the new, 100-billion-mile wide star? Roomy, isn't it? Like how it makes heavier elements consistently to allow formation of planets?"

    I've never heard of this star. I miss the Pixar updates, but this was worthwhile.

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  9. I am fascinated by things like this, especially when I convert the ideology into kickass spells, like Black Holes and Supernovas.

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  10. I've read a theory that time is based on the expansion of our universe that's been going on since the Big Bang. But eventually the universe will stop expanding and the outward motion of the universe will reverse itself as our sun prepares to super nova. When this happens, time itself will reverse and all that has happened will play back like a film played backwards. Have you heard of a theory like this?

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  11. Meh - its okay I guess.

    I'm kidding. I am addicted to that and all the similar shows out there that discuss the cosmos. We've learned more about the cosmos in the past 20 years than we have in all of recorded history. I park my butt in my chair and soak it all up as much as I can. We live in glorious times.

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  12. Wow! Amazing information about VY Canis Majoris. By the way, I think black holes are fascinating.

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  13. I like that show too. I've been watching a lot of stuff like that lately.

    This was fascinating.

    ........dhole

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  14. Isn't gravity cool?

    And just imagine. When that star explodes, all that matter will go out and make more planets and such. It's just fascinating.

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  15. I love these kinds of programs. Makes me want to watch some Symphony of Science. (:

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  16. Okay, Michael Sagan! Very mind-blogging!:)

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  17. Cool! I recently saw the Future of Space Travel show at the Museum of Natural History in NY and it blew me away. Full of details like this, or like mining asteroids and it had a picture of Richard Branson's Galaxy Airliner. Black holes are so bizarre to really picture in your head.

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  18. My son's response to the cover of your book: "whoa... Cool spider."

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  19. I'd never heard of hypernovas -- so very cool. But I've heard of how time stops in a black hole, which I don't understand but find fascinating.

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  20. I had heard of Nova but I did not know what hypernovas were. Thanks for sharing.
    Watching this video made me realize how big the universe is.

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  21. Holy crap! This is amazing. The wonders of the universe fascinate me. There is so much to wrap your mind around that I don't think it's even possible to do so.

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  22. The universe is an amazing thing. So much to learn, so much to discover!

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  23. My mind can never quite wrap around how big the universe is.

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