Are Hawaii Astronomers onto Something?

The stereotype has been around since the glut of science-fiction movies began in the 1950’s: scientists peering through giant telescopes at the universe, making notes on clipboards and occasionally discovering some strange phenomenon that will alter life on earth as we know it.

At or around the summit of Mauna Kea on Hawaii’s Big Island is a cluster of 12 powerful telescopes that can focus on objects far beyond the limits of those sci-fi writers’ imaginations. There really are scientists up there peering at the heavens. You can even take tours.

Astronomers using the Subaru Telescope on Mauna Kea have discovered truly enormous blobs of superheated gas that they describe as "fireballs."  Actually, they discovered the things a couple of years ago but just now are releasing the findings.

3,000 to 6,000 light-years across, the blobs humble the distance between our sun and its nearest star neighbor, which is “just” 4.3 light years away.  They’re
ten million times as huge as the sun.  They’re really hot, too — tens of millions of degrees at the time they start to form and that’s way hotter than the hottest visible part of the sun, which we can see only during a total eclipse.

Seems a little spooky, doesn’t it?  What else do those scientists know that they aren’t telling us?

Add comment October 9th, 2008