This past week there was a beautiful total eclipse of our Sun visible for a few minutes from Indonesia, so it’s a good time to be thinking about all kinds of eclipses. A team of astronomers from several universities recently reported the discovery of a star that is eclipsed for more than 3 years every 69 years. This is the record holder for eclipses anywhere in the universe so far!
What would eclipse a star for such a long period of time? It can’t be a moon, or a planet, or another star, since all of those are too small to cause an eclipse that lasts three and a half years. There must be something around the star that extends over a much larger area and gets in the way of its light as seen from Earth.
After a lot of careful investigation -- using both recent observations by professional and amateur astronomers, and images going back over the last century -- the team concluded that they were seeing two aging stars whirling around each other in 69 years. One of the stars has lost a good deal of its material as it aged, and this lost material now forms a huge disk or doughnut around the emaciated star. It is this large disk that gets in front of the other star and cuts out its light as seen from our viewing angle.
We have seen other systems where such disks cause long eclipses. The best known case is the star Epsilon Aurigae, whose eclipses last about 700 days and happen every 27 years. It too has been studied by large teams of astronomers to uncover its secrets.
But our star (which has no name, only a long catalog number TYC-2505-672-1) is further away and its eclipses take much longer to repeat. The only way astronomers were able to figure out that it has a 69-year cycle is because they were able to consult a hundred-year repository of pictures of the sky that has been lovingly kept up at the Harvard College Observatory.
Those old images, many of them made on glass plates back in the days of chemical photography, are a treasure for astronomers. They are now being “digitized” – made into digital images that can be scanned and tracked via computer.
So if astronomers want to know if something interesting (like our eclipse) might have happened to a star sometime in the last century, they can now look up on the Harvard images what that star has been doing all that time. As someone who has trouble throwing out old files or magazines, my heart leapt when I heard about how important the old records were to the discovery!
And how far does stripped star with its disk of dark material have to be from the other star to only have an eclipse every 69 years? Their separation must be more than 20 times the distance between the Earth and the Sun, roughly the distance between the Sun and Uranus.
(The image shows an artist's impression of the dark disk moving in front of a red giant star.)
*****
By the way, to see a nice animation of the dark eclipse spot from the Indonesia eclipse on Earth, go to: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Solar_eclipse_of_2016_March_9#/media/File:An_EPIC_Eclipse.gif
My husband and I have been married for about 7 yrs now. We were happily married with two kids, a boy and a girl. 3 months ago, I started to notice some strange behavior from him and a few weeks later I found out that my husband is seeing someone. He started coming home late from work, he hardly care about me or the kids anymore, Sometimes he goes out and doesn't even come back home for about 2-3 days. I did all I could to rectify this problem but all to no avail. I became very worried and needed help. As I was browsing through the internet one day, I came across a website that suggested that Dr Unity can help solve marital problems, restore broken relationships and so on. So, I felt I should give him a try. I contacted him and he did a spell for me. Three days later, my husband came to me and apologized for the wrongs he did and promise never to do it again. Ever since then, everything has returned back to normal. I and my family are living together happily again.. All thanks to Dr Unity . If you need a spell caster that can cast a spell that truly works, I suggest you contact him. He will not disappoint you. This is his E-mail: Unityspelltemple@gmail.com .
ReplyDeleteBEST AND GENUINE SPELL CASTER ONLINE TO HELP SAVE BROKEN MARRIAGE AND BROKEN RELATIONSHIP
ReplyDeleteAm Jerry miler, I live in London, and I’m happily married with a lovely wife and three children. I had a very big problem with my wife few months ago, to the extent that she left the house with our kids to her parents' for almost 5 months. All efforts to bring them back proved abortive. Friends and Family were all in concern and my very close mate gave me an advice concerning a spell caster, and he quote; “There’s someone who can handle your situation, he’s always ready and able to do anything related to spiritual matters, I searched for a spell caster on the internet, his advert was everywhere, i found his number and called him on his mobile number +2347052958531. Although I never believed in spell casting, but he convinced me and I had no choice than to follow his advice, because I never dream of losing my lovely wife and I was desperate. So I did all what he told me to do and i did. He told me that I’ll get my wife back in two days after the spell is completed. I was skeptical. He casted the spell for me and i was so anxious waiting to see or hear from her, until the second day when my wife called and said she was coming HOME…..It was like a joke to me!!! That’s how I got my family back through spiritual means and our relationship is now stronger than ever. One of the price I was asked to pay was to tell it to people around me that problems like this, can always be solved by Dr Ewan. And this is his email too if you wish to contact him and solve your problem too covenantsolutiontemple@gmail.com , my advice to you out there is to visit this great Dr Ewan and tell him your problems. He's capable of handling anything spiritual and spell casting. Thanks a lot for saving my marriage. covenantsolutiontemple@gmail.com. You can also add him up on watsapp on +2349057353987, you can also call him on his mobile number +2347052958531
There is a great herbal man called Dr voodoo who can cure Hepatitis B virus and other deadly diseases with the use of natural herbs to cure Hepatitis B virus problems. He is from Africa and he is a great doctor and he can also cure you as well if you are have the problem And other deadly disease and here is email address voodoospelltemple66@gmail.com or Whatsapp +2348140120719 HERPES CURE,CANCER CURE,HIV/AIDS CURE,HPV CURE
ReplyDelete