The doomed star Eta Carinae, it is blowing itself apart before it finally goes supernova
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STScI
Strange Stuff In Space
There is some pretty strange stuff in outer space. Some things are just so weird that scientists don't even know what they are.
When stars die they die in many different ways. When normal stars, like our sun, die they leave behind a White Dwarf. When really big stars die they often blow up in a huge explosion called a Supernova. Depending on how big a star was that went supernova, a Neutron Star or a Black Hole may be left behind.
There are stranger things in space. Not very long ago astronomers were confused by the mystery of Quasars. These objects look like stars but are much farther away than stars in our galaxy. And they are much brighter.
There is an effect that has caused excitement among astronomers called Gravitational Lensing. This is where really big things, like galaxies and galaxy clusters, actually bend light like a lens using gravity!
One of the strangest things in space is the mystery of Gamma Ray Bursts. These are what seem to be bursts of gamma rays, you know the radiation that made the Incredible Hulk. They come from every direction in the sky.
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When stars like our own sun die they will become White Dwarfs. As a star like our sun is running out of fuel in its center it grows into a red giant. This will happen to our sun in 5 Billion years. The
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Neutron Stars form when really big stars die. When such a star runs out of fuel its center begins to collapse under gravity. When the center collapses the entire star collapses. The surface of the star
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Satellites in the 1960's looked for a type of light called Gamma Rays. They found bursts of Gamma Rays coming from outer space! They can't hurt you. They are stopped by the Earth's atmosphere. We have
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A lot of people like to hear stories about black holes because they are so mysterious! A new discovery has been made about black holes - some of them spin! All of the matter and light that comes near a
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Spiral galaxies may remind you of a pinwheel that blows in the breeze. Like a pinwheel, a spiral galaxy is rotating, and it has spiral arms. Through a telescope or binoculars,a spiral galaxy may look
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