Podcaster: Pamela Quevillon
Title: A Toast to a Middle-aged Star!
Organization: Speak Easy Narration
Link : http://speakeasynarration.com ; http://unawe.org/kids/unawe1371/
Description: Space scoop, news for children. You can still see signs of astronomy’s legendary past in the names of space objects. The planets, for example, are almost all named after Roman gods: Mars is the Roman god of War and Venus is the god of Love.
Bio: Pamela Quevillon is a voice actress who most often lends her voice to science and science fiction content. You can find her work on the “Escape Pod” and “365 Days of Astronomy”
Today’s sponsor: This episode of “365 Days of Astronomy” is sponsored by — no one. We still need sponsors for many days in 2013, so please consider sponsoring a day or two. Just click on the “Donate” button on the lower left side of this webpage, or contact us at signup@365daysofastronomy.org.
Transcript:
Located far from Earth in the Southern night sky is the Toby Jug nebula, which has been captured in amazing detail in this new photograph. The cloud of pale gas surrounds a huge Red Giant star that has five times the mass of our Sun! The bright light from the star in the middle reflects off the gas, causing it to glow. Credit: ESO
Located far from Earth in the Southern night sky is the Toby Jug nebula, which has been captured in amazing detail in this new photograph. The cloud of pale gas surrounds a huge Red Giant star that has five times the mass of our Sun! The bright light from the star in the middle reflects off the gas, causing it to glow. The nebula was named by two British astronomers. To them, the pale swirls of gas resemble the handle and bowl of an old English cup called a Toby Jug.
Although the star at the heart of the nebula is millions of years younger than our Sun, it’s already in a much later stage of its life. This is because more massive stars run through their lives more quickly than less massive ones. Our Sun is 4.6 billion years old and it’s only just hitting middle age, whereas this star will live to be just a few million years old because it has much more mass. The Red Giant phase is just a small portion of a star’s lifecycle, making the object in this picture a pretty rare sight!
Eventually, when our Sun has burnt through most of the hydrogen in its core, it will also bloat into a Red Giant. Astronomers think that when this happens, our Sun will inflate to well beyond the Earth’s orbit. This means it will engulf all of the rocky inner planets of our Solar System: Mercury, Venus, Earth and maybe even Mars!
Cool Fact : With the extreme speed at which technology is advancing, there’s a chance that humans could be living on a different planet by the time the Sun becomes a Red Giant. There are already a few humans on the International Space Station. This cool website allows you to keep track of how many people are in space at any time: http://www.howmanypeopleareinspacerightnow.com/
End of podcast:
365 Days of Astronomy
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The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by the New Media Working Group of the International Year of Astronomy 2009. Audio post-production by Preston Gibson. Bandwidth donated by libsyn.com and wizzard media. Web design by Clockwork Active Media Systems. You may reproduce and distribute this audio for non-commercial purposes. Please consider supporting the podcast with a few dollars (or Euros!). Visit us on the web at 365DaysOfAstronomy.org or email us at info@365DaysOfAstronomy.org. In the new year the 365 Days of Astronomy project will be something different than before….Until then…goodbye.