Hubble Detects Giant 'Cannonballs' Shooting from Star

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Djchrismac
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Hubble Detects Giant 'Cannonballs' Shooting from Star

Post by Djchrismac »

http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/201 ... -from-star

Or in other words, your science is backwards.... hence the confusion:
The fireballs present a puzzle to astronomers, because the ejected material could not have been shot out by the host star, called V Hydrae. The star is a bloated red giant, residing 1,200 light-years away, which has probably shed at least half of its mass into space during its death throes. Red giants are dying stars in the late stages of life that are exhausting their nuclear fuel that makes them shine. They have expanded in size and are shedding their outer layers into space.
Complexity is entertaining...
The current best explanation suggests the plasma balls were launched by an unseen companion star. According to this theory, the companion would have to be in an elliptical orbit that carries it close to the red giant's puffed-up atmosphere every 8.5 years. As the companion enters the bloated star's outer atmosphere, it gobbles up material. This material then settles into a disk around the companion, and serves as the launching pad for blobs of plasma, which travel at roughly a half-million miles per hour.
:roll:

Are these "cannonballs" (or balls of plasma being ejected from the red giant early in it's lifecycle to be more accurate) like sunspots but more concentrated, as the star is in the volatile stage of development before settling down and seeing the plasma ejection spread across the surface more?
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bperet
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Re: Hubble Detects Giant 'Cannonballs' Shooting from Star

Post by bperet »

Djchrismac wrote:Are these "cannonballs" (or balls of plasma being ejected from the red giant early in it's lifecycle to be more accurate) like sunspots but more concentrated, as the star is in the volatile stage of development before settling down and seeing the plasma ejection spread across the surface more?
I think you are correct; they are an early form of sunspots with the "solar flare" shooting off into space because of the very low gravity of a newly forming red giant. Look at solar flare ejecta--looks like a cannonball being shot off to me!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3P9-C4QCstw

If you refer to Nehru's sunspot paper, the "shot pattern" will follow that of the sunspots (changing latitudes regularly), giving the appearance of a "wobbly accretion disk." The cause of the ejecta (and solar flares) is co-magnetic, which means it is moving in the ultra-high speed range (a jet).
Every dogma has its day...
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