5/3/2004: Bug nebula

[Undertoad]

The latest out of Hubble is another very picturesque one, which gets even better when you hear the explanation which I summarize from this very good description of the whole thing:

What you're looking at there is the end of the life of a star. This star is burning really hot, at 250000 degrees C. That's so hot, so unbelieveably hot, that it's one of those numbers that one just has no comprehension of. The hottest day I've ever felt was about 40 C, and all the measures of C degrees heat I've indirectly felt have at most 3 digits, as produced by fire or kilns or torches. Six digits of heat: you might as well just forget about the whole "heat is this sensation my nerve endings communicate to my brain" thing, because your nerve endings would be completely toasted within any distance you could use them to stick a thermometer to measure this star.

Now, this really hot star is in this shot, but you can't see it, for two reasons. One, it mostly gives off ultraviolet light, which we humans don't see very well with our eyes. Two, the star is totally obscured in this shot by the dust that it has thrown off, which consists of a blanket of hailstones.

Ya follow? Amazingly hot star, so hot we can't conceive of it, and we can't SEE it because it's surrounded by ICE formations. That bright stuff there is hailstones formed around particles of dust.

And they figure the star blew this dust out about 10,000 years ago, but they don't know why it hasn't been evaporated away.

Whoa.