Brace yourself for a cosmic horror story: zombie stars that refuse to die and are eating each other alive! In deep space, some stars explode in a blast called a supernova, but instead of disappearing, these “zombie” stars keep coming back. They pull in energy and matter from a nearby star, feeding on it like a space vampire, until they’re powerful enough to explode again! Each time they explode and revive, they get hungrier, pulling in more material from their companion in a strange, deadly dance. Astronomers are fascinated by these undead stars, watching the cosmic cannibalism unfold. It’s a wild and haunting sight, proving that even stars can have an afterlife! Credit: CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/: double star: by ESO/L. Calçada https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Artist%E2%80%99s_impression_of_the_hottest_and_most_massive_touching_double_star_(eso1540a).webm binary star: by ESO/L. Calçada/M. Kornmesser/S.E. de Mink https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A4%D0%B0%D0%B9%D0%BB:Artist%27s_impression_of_the_evolution_of_a_hot_high-mass_binary_star.ogv Vega star: by Pablo Carlos Budassi https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vega_star_black_background.png Animation is created by Bright Side. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Music by Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Our Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightside Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.official TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.official?lang=en Stock materials (photos, footages and other): https://www.depositphotos.com https://www.shutterstock.com https://www.eastnews.ru ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00Stargazers, come up here, because I have exciting news!
00:05Astronomers have just completed the full mapping of two pairs of stars outside our Milky Way galaxy
00:11that are chowing down on their stellar neighbors.
00:14Not only does it give us a better understanding of stars in general,
00:18but it can also help us measure distance in the night sky.
00:24Did you know that more than half of the stars in our Milky Way are paired?
00:29And while it's unlikely that other galaxies have a significant number of binary stars too,
00:34they're usually too faint to see.
00:37But these so-called symbiotic stars, where one star consumes the other,
00:42are extremely bright and easier to observe.
00:46And, according to scientists, measuring the orbits of these symbiotic star systems
00:51is an essential step towards learning whether other galaxies create binary stars like those in our Milky Way.
01:00Now, let's get down to the nitty-gritty.
01:03A pair of stars may be born together, but due to their masses, they age differently.
01:09The more massive one burns through its material faster, reaching the end of its lifetime first,
01:15and leaves behind a compact white dwarf.
01:18White dwarfs are small and dim, but can pack the mass of the Sun into an object the size of Earth.
01:26If close enough, their gravity can pull material from their companion,
01:30creating a signal that astronomers can identify from far away.
01:35Draco C1 and Lin 358 are the symbiotic stars that have been fully mapped.
01:42The stars in Draco C1 take roughly three Earth years to orbit one another,
01:48while Lin 358's components take just over two.
01:52These are the first full orbital measurements of any symbiotic star system outside the Milky Way.
01:59The new measurements will help astronomers better understand star formations in other galaxies.
02:06In some symbiotic stars, the white dwarf can slurp enough material from its companion that it explodes in a supernova.
02:14These supernovae are incredibly bright and can be seen across the universe.
02:20They all start out with the same brightness for a nearby observer,
02:24making them like a sort of standard candle for measuring the universe.
02:28While Draco C1 and Lin 358 are unlikely to explode as supernovae anytime soon,
02:35understanding how they work can provide us with a better understanding of how these standard candles evolve.
02:44If you're here to complete your knowledge of weird stars in the universe, don't be disappointed.
02:49We're not finished just yet.
02:51Have you ever wondered about the biggest stars in the universe?
02:57Scientists have recently discovered a gigantic star called UY Scuti.
03:02This bad boy is located about 9,500 light years away from Earth and is truly out of this world.
03:10It's about 1,700 times larger than our Sun,
03:14which means if it were in our solar system, it would reach past Jupiter's orbit.
03:19There's more. UY Scuti isn't just massive, it's also super bright.
03:25It's what scientists call a red supergiant,
03:28and it shines with a brightness of about 340,000 times that of our Sun.
03:34If you're thinking about getting a tan from this star, think again though.
03:38It's way too far away for that.
03:41How does a star like UY Scuti even form, you might wonder?
03:46Well, it starts out like any other star.
03:48A cloud of gas and dust collapses under its gravity and starts to heat up.
03:54Eventually, the temperature becomes hot enough in the core of the cloud to ignite nuclear fusion,
04:00and a star is born.
04:03But UY Scuti didn't stop there.
04:05It kept devouring more and more gas and dust, growing larger and larger.
04:11This process continued until it became the giant we know today.
04:16As fascinating as UY Scuti is, it's not the only big star out there.
04:21There are others, like VY Canis Majoris,
04:24which was once thought to be the biggest star until UY Scuti stole the show.
04:29VY Canis Majoris is still a force to be reckoned with though.
04:33It's about 1,400 times larger than our Sun,
04:37and located about 5,000 light years away from us.
04:41But here's the kicker.
04:43Stars like UY Scuti and VY Canis Majoris aren't even the biggest things in the universe.
04:49Not by a long shot.
04:51There are objects, called hypergiants, that make these stars look like ants in comparison.
04:57One such hypergiant is Stevenson 218, located about 20,000 light years away.
05:04It's about 2,150 times larger than our Sun,
05:08and shines with the brightness of 7 million Suns.
05:12And just when you thought things couldn't get any crazier,
05:16there's a mysterious object called the Great Attractor
05:19that's pulling everything in our local group of galaxies towards it.
05:24We don't know what it is or what's causing it,
05:27but one theory is that it's a massive cluster of hypergiants.
05:32We'd be minuscule in comparison.
05:35The next star is so metal, it's practically headbanging all the time.
05:41Jokes aside, scientists have discovered a star that's called a Heavy Metal Subdwarf.
05:46Now that's a band name.
05:48It's a type of star that's seriously heavy metal.
05:51This star has more metal in its composition than any other star we've seen before.
05:56Such stars are said to contain metal elements like iron, nickel, and chromium.
06:02This Heavy Metal Subdwarf has about 10,000 times more iron than our Sun.
06:09In their discovery, astronomers used a technique called spectroscopy,
06:13which involves analyzing the light that comes from the star
06:17to determine what elements it's made of.
06:19By looking at the spectrum of light,
06:22scientists were able to see that this star had an unusual amount of metal in its composition.
06:28There's more.
06:29This Heavy Metal Subdwarf isn't just a regular star with a lot of metal.
06:34It's also really weird in other ways.
06:37For one thing, it's smaller and cooler than our Sun.
06:40And for another, it's really old.
06:43We're talking about a star that's been around for almost as long as the universe itself.
06:49What does this all mean?
06:51Well, scientists are hoping that by studying this Heavy Metal Subdwarf,
06:55they can learn more about the early universe.
06:58Since this star is so old that it was around when the universe was just beginning to form,
07:04it's seen a lot of stuff.
07:07By studying its composition and characteristics,
07:10scientists can get a better understanding of what the universe was like in its early days.
07:16This next star is one of the coolest things in outer space.
07:20Her name is Vega, and it's one of the brightest stars in the night sky.
07:25Some recognize it as the shiny point of light in the constellation Lyra.
07:29And get this, it's only about 25 light years away from us,
07:34which, in astronomical terms, is practically next door.
07:38Scientists have been studying Vega for a long time,
07:42and they've learned some pretty interesting things.
07:45For starters, Vega is a young star, only a few hundred million years old.
07:50That might sound like a long time, but compared to our Sun,
07:53which is around 4.6 billion years old, Vega is practically a newborn.
07:59Vega is also a very hot star, with a surface temperature of around 17,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
08:06To put that into perspective, the surface of our Sun is only about 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
08:12So if you think it's hot outside today, just be glad you're not hanging out on Vega.
08:18Another interesting thing about this star is that it's surrounded by a disk of dust and gas.
08:24This disk is called a debris disk because it's made up of leftover material from when the star formed.
08:30Scientists think that this debris disk is similar to the one that surrounded our solar system when it was young.
08:37Vega is also a source of cosmic rays.
08:40These rays are high-energy particles that zip around space at incredible speeds.
08:46They're made up of protons, electrons, and other particles,
08:50and scientists aren't exactly sure where they come from.
08:53But they do know that Vega is one of the places where cosmic rays originate.
08:58But wait, there's more!
09:00Vega is also a famous star in pop culture.
09:04It's been used in a lot of movies and books as a source of inspiration,
09:09mostly because of its brightness and cool features.
09:13That's it for today.
09:14So hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your friends.
09:19Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the Bright Side!