It’s wonderful to see how even at this scale there’s still that fractal-ish, dense and chaotic, but elegant and beautiful aesthetic that nature creates.
Good question. According to this article, the process going on with Betelgeuse does sound like the same or very similar to the process described in OP’s article.
The great dimming [of Betelgeuse] was caused by the star spitting out a lump of gas and dust, like chewing gum: or what scientists call a “surface mass ejection” caused by an “anomalously hot convective plume”.
OP’s article doesn’t say that the Old Smokers they found are red super-giants but since they called them old smokers, I’m inclined to think that they are. Also because they say that smoke contains much higher levels of heavy elements than is common in the region which would also be consistent with older stars. The article doesn’t say whether or not the stars puff out smoke on a regular schedule like Betelgeuse does, but then maybe they haven’t been watching them long enough to see a pattern yet.
It does seem like they found a bunch of older stars that are pre-supernova, just like Betelgeuse is, and burping out clouds of gas and dust.
I missed it at first as well. The second paragraph implies they are red giants. However, there is a distinction between a red giant and a red super-giant, if that is what you mean.
The “peculiar” puffing behavior of these stars has never been seen before in such red giants, astrophysicist Philip Lucas told AFP.
So, in my typical nature, I went right to the source and shot off an email to Professor Philip Lucas from the University of Hertfordshire. He was one of the primary researchers for the original paper. (P.W. Lucas et al.)
It’s such a harsh message to propagate, though. A lot of these smaller countries have been really pushing their space programs, and they don’t need “LOL, lander upside-down” memes to accent their recent failure any further.
At this rate, Japan may be able to actually land on the moon in a few more years, take some great pictures, and shove Mashable’s “space photo of the decade” quote directly up their ass. Where it belongs.
I’ve been binging on For All Mankind and it’s been a great reminder of how difficult space exploration actually is and how quickly things can go wrong.
The fact that they accomplished their goal of pinpoint landing within 10 meters of their target should be the lede.
I bet people in the industry are amazed by this accomplishment.
It’s the sad part of science communication. The pop culture sees difficulties and failures as indictments of character. In science, failures are the fuel of progress. In this case, especially in scientific circles, this was a massive success and is being celebrated as such. The upside down part is laughed at as just the price of making the unimaginable, possible. But most publications who don’t belong to science journalism just don’t understand.
Why would that lead to shoving a quote anywhere? Much of the marvel of this photo is the unusual circumstances around it.
We’ve already got photos of the moon.
This, afaik, is the first photo we have a lander that suffered a significant complication in the landing but was still able to deploy a rover to take a picture.
Between that or blimps on Mars and other planets, it's almost a given to have something with any new exploration. Just like rovers are so much better than a fixed location for a one-shot deal.
Based on the gradient of pressures from the “surface” to the core, it’s entirely feasible. I’ve read about ideas for blimp colonies on Jupiter as well as Venus!
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