• Question: Do you have a favourite star?

    Asked by sushipop to Adam on 14 Mar 2011 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Adam Tuff

      Adam Tuff answered on 14 Mar 2011:

      I do! My favourite star is called Eta Carinae in the Carina constellation. It’s my favourite star because this star is a very special type of star called a “Wolf-Rayet” star (named after the astronomers who found the first one). These stars are MASSIVE, and we think Eta Carinae is about 120 times the size of our own sun in mass.

      What’s interesting about it is it actually changes it’s brightness…you can hardly see it in the sky at night now, but in 1843, it was the second brightest star in the sky after Sirius – and we don’t know why it changes so much.

      There are many scientists who think that this star may be close to death…and when it dies it is going to be one unimaginably large explosion – a Hypernova – even bigger than a supernova! If it does that, some think it will be so bright, you will be able to see the star during the day, and read by it’s light at night!

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