CIRS tagged posts

Artist’s impression of the hot massive supergiant Zeta Puppis. The rotation period of the star indicated by the new BRITE observations is 1.78 d, and its spin axis is inclined by (24 ± 9)° with respect to the line of sight. Credit: Tahina Ramiaramanantsoa

Astronomers recently discovered that spots on the surface of a supergiant star are driving huge spiral structures in its stellar wind. Massive stars are responsible for producing the heavy elements that make up all life on Earth. At the end of their lives they scatter the material into interstellar space in catastrophic explosions ie supernovae – without these dramatic events, our solar system would never have formed.

Zeta Puppis is an evolved massive star known as a ‘supergiant’...

The hazy globe of Titan hangs in front of Saturn and its rings in this natural color view from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

The puzzling appearance of an ice cloud seemingly out of thin air has prompted NASA scientists to suggest that a different process than previously thought – possibly similar to one seen over Earth’s poles – could be forming clouds on Saturn’s moon Titan. Located in Titan’s stratosphere, the cloud is made of a compound of carbon and nitrogen known as dicyanoacetylene (C4N2), an ingredient in the chemical cocktail that colors the giant moon’s hazy, brownish-orange atmosphere. Decades ago, the infrared instrument on NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft spotted an ice cloud just like this one on Titan...