Speeding Star Mira
by Weston Westmoreland
Title
Speeding Star Mira
Artist
Weston Westmoreland
Medium
Photograph - Photograph
Description
Speeding Star Mira, Enhanced.
Mira is a speeding red giant star leaving an enormous trail of material that will be recycled into new stars and planets as it hurls through our galaxy, 350 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Cetus. Mira's comet-like tail stretches a startling 13 light-years across the sky (our closest neighbor, Alpha Centauri, is 4 light-years away).
This image is an enhanced combination of two images from NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer: Mira's full, comet-like tail, in shorter ultraviolet wavelengths and a view of both far and short ultraviolet wavelengths of Mira's closest area. Mira appears as a pinkish dot while shed material appears in light blue. The large blue dot on the left side and the large yellow dot to the right are both stars closer to us than Mira.
It took Mira 30,000 years to get from where we see the end of the tail to where it is now, so when that tail light started its journey towards us Neanderthals still roamed the Earth. The middle part of the tail would correspond with the Magdalenian Period in the Upper Paleolithic and the brightest part to the right would correspond to the last 5000 years, roughly the age of civilization. Mira offers us a ride through time.
Mira is a highly evolved, "red giant" star near the end of its life. Technically, it is called an "asymptotic giant branch star". Mira ejects the equivalent of the Earth's mass every 10 years, thus forming its tail and while most stars travel around our Milky Way, Mira is charging through it at 291,000 miles per hour.
Original images and text by NASA/JPL-Caltech. Image combination and further enhancements and post processing by Weston Westmoreland.
More Planetary & Deep Space Enhanced images at http://westonwestmoreland.com/collections/astronomy
Weston Westmoreland.
Uploaded
May 2nd, 2019
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