More than 115 cases of eye damage reported in Ontario after solar eclipse
More than 115 people who viewed the solar eclipse in Ontario earlier this month experienced eye damage after the event, according to eye doctors in the province.
The central star forming the Southern Ring Nebula is dying, emitting the "messy" red dust that forms its titular rings, and researchers now understand the phenomenon visible through a high-powered telescope is caused by multiple stars, not just one.
A team of 70 researchers found there were two or more "unseen" stars that created the circular shapes around the nebula.
A nebula, as described by NASA, is a term for a cloud of dust and gas in space formed from the explosion of a dying star.
The Southern Ring Nebula is about 2,000 light-years away from Earth.
The team behind the research, led by Orsola De Marco of Macquarie University in Sydney, analyzed 10 of NASA's James Webb Telescope images and existing data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia observatory.
The discovery was published in Nature Astronomy on Dec. 8.
"With Webb, it’s like we were handed a microscope to examine the universe," De Marco said in NASA's press release."There is so much detail in its images. We approached our analysis much like forensic scientists to rebuild the scene. "
The Southern Ring Nebula is aging, which is why researchers are interested in how it was created and what is happening. The processes of the dying star created red gas forming the nebula, making for what researchers call a "messy death."
"We think all that gas and dust we see thrown all over the place must have come from that one star, but it was tossed in very specific directions by the companion stars," Joel Kastner, a team member from the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York, said in NASA's press release.
The team was able to pinpoint the mass of stars that created the nebula, which shows the central star was nearly three times bigger than the sun at the time. After it started shedding layers of gas and dust, which happens as stars age, the team was able to see how many stars created the shapes of the Southern Ring Nebula.
"Knowing the initial mass is a critical piece of evidence that helped the team reconstruct the scene and project how the shapes in this nebula may have been created," the NASA website reads.
The team believes the central star interacted with one or two small companion stars which spread out the dusty red gas seen circling around.
By understanding how the nebula got its rings, researchers can apply the evidence to other systems in deep space answering questions on how stars are created and why the dust forms circles.
More than 115 people who viewed the solar eclipse in Ontario earlier this month experienced eye damage after the event, according to eye doctors in the province.
George Mallory is renowned for being one of the first British mountaineers to attempt to scale the dizzying heights of Mount Everest during the 1920s. Nearly a century later, newly digitized letters shed light on Mallory’s hopes and fears about ascending Everest.
A Sherwood Park family says their new house is uninhabitable. The McNaughton's say they were forced to leave the house after living there for only a week because contaminants inside made it difficult to breathe.
An emergency slide fell off a Delta Air Lines jetliner shortly after takeoff Friday from New York, and pilots who felt a vibration in the plane circled back to land safely at JFK Airport.
The B.C. NDP has asked the federal government to recriminalize public drug use, marking a major shift in the province's approach to addressing the deadly overdose crisis.
Sophie Gregoire Trudeau says there is 'still so much love' between her and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as they navigate their post-separation relationship co-parenting their three children.
A man has been handed a lengthy hunting ban and fined thousands of dollars for illegally killing a grizzly bear, B.C. conservation officers say.
An Ontario man who took out a loan to pay for auto repairs said his car was repossessed after he missed two payments.
Devastating tornadoes tore across parts of eastern Nebraska and northeast Texas Friday as a multi-day severe thunderstorm event ramped up in the central United States, injuring at least three people.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
A property tax bill is perplexing a small townhouse community in Fergus, Ont.
When identical twin sisters Kim and Michelle Krezonoski were invited to compete against some of the world’s most elite female runners at last week’s Boston Marathon, they were in disbelief.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.
A local Oilers fan is hoping to see his team cut through the postseason, so he can cut his hair.
A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.
A former educational assistant is calling attention to the rising violence in Alberta's classrooms.
The federal government says its plan to increase taxes on capital gains is aimed at wealthy Canadians to achieve “tax fairness.”
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.