Jason and the Argonauts
January 11th 2009 14:32
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A nebulous shell, now surrounds the site of the explosion
About 12 hundred ago an ordinary star in what is now the constellation of Vela brightened by about 100 million times enough to compete with our Moon as the brightest object in the night sky, The star was probably about 15 times the size of our sun before going supernova.
The name Vela means sail according to mythology belonging to the ship Argo sailed by Jason and the Argonauts. Vela was once part of the ancient constellation of Argo Navis (ship) and is broken into 4 separate constellations consisting of Carina (the keel), Vela (the sail), Puppis (the pup), and Pyxis (the compass).
Could the effects of star explosions affect earth ?.
While it is possible that distant star explosions would have a minor impact on earth there is a real threat if Eta Carinae was to explod life on earth would be at risk. Eta Carinae (1 Carinae or 1; Car) is a hypergiant luminous blue variable star in the Carina constellation) the most massive star known in our galaxy with 100 times as mass and 5 million times as luminous as the Sun is rapidly burning matter off its surface. At any time its core could collapse into a black hole, which may result in a gamma-ray burst that can devastate life on Earth. Eta Carinae will explode in time, when? perhaps in the next 10 thousand years.
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Comment by S.L.
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Eta Carinae is a rarity too. Apparently there are (fortunately) only a couple of dozen stars that large in the entire galaxy.