NASA captures unbelievable picture of ‘cosmic garden sprinkler’ in area
Space boffins have spotted a cosmic “lawn sprinkler”, according to NASA. Their Hubble Space Telescope has given us a “a dramatic and colourful” close-up of one of the “most rambunctious stars in our galaxy”.
The binary star system, R Aquarii, located about 700 light-years away, has been seen having violent eruptions that spew out massive filaments of glowing gas, creating a “weaving a huge spiral pattern among the stars.”
NASA commented: “The twisted stellar outflows make the region look like a lawn sprinkler gone berserk.”
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The space agency believes this dramatically shows how the universe redistributes nuclear energy products formed deep inside stars and then ejected back into space. R Aquarii is part of a class of double stars known as symbiotic stars, with the primary star being an aging red giant and its companion a compact burned-out star, or white dwarf.
(Image: No credit)
The red giant primary star, classified as a Mira variable, is over 400 times larger than our Sun. NASA added: “The bloated monster star pulsates, changes temperature, and varies in brightness by a factor of 750 times over a roughly 390-day period. At its peak the star is blinding at nearly 5,000 times our Sun’s brightness.”
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