An "impossible" star is born. And a hole in space shows what happens once a star is formed. Plus, an out-of-this world zombie! It's your Buzz space roundup.
Caught on telescope: "impossible" star
Get out of the way, Hollywood. This star will be brighter than every celeb on the planet combined. Scientists’ European-built Herschel space telescope is their version of Tinseltown’s paparazzi, which caught on tape the beginning of a big star. And we mean really, really big. So enormous, it would block out the sun. Not to mention Angelina Jolie.
Researchers can't explain how what they're calling the "impossible" star came to be. The star was discovered in a star-forming cloud in the Milky Way Galaxy called RCW 120. And here's the coolest part: Even as a baby star, it is already eight to ten times larger than our sun, and it's still feeding on the gas and dust clouds around it. The star is set to be one of the biggest and brightest stars in our galaxy within the next few hundred thousand years — meaning, this star won't ever be a part of our lives. But hey, if movies are still around in the way future, this gigunda star should seriously considering signing with a talent agent.
How did that get there?
That's not the only unexplained mystery in space. That same Herschel infrared telescope also picked up an enormous hole in space. A story from Space.com has a scientist noting, and we quote, "No one has ever seen a hole like this." The surprising find is confounding scientists because it is so unexpected. When a star forms, it's surrounded by gas and dust. (See above.) But how a newborn star shakes off the space debris to emerge from its brith cloud hadn't been fully understood. Until now: Black patches near the stars were always around a reflective gas, NGC 1999
Everyone figured the black patches near the star were gas, but the telescope would have picked up on that. Finally, scientists realized they were looking at a big, empty hole where the space dust used to be — possibly caused by some of the young stars puncturing a hole with the jets of gas. For researchers, this amazing discovery is a helpful step into understanding how a star is formed.
It wants to eat your satellite's brain
Finally, scientists have no idea how to stop a fully powered satellite that has gone rogue and is no longer accepting orders from earth. This so-called "zombie" satellite, known as Galaxy 15 (which carried the SyFy channel), continues along in the Earth's orbit — on a course to interfere with the communications of a fully functioning SES satellite beaming down programming for AMC 11 to its customers in the United States. Nobody panic: the owner of the undead satellite, Intelsat, is attempting a fix. The interference is expected on May 23, and chances of the company succeeding in stopping the communication break-down are not good. OK, panic.
/by Claudine Zap
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