News in Science reports on a dying star named Mira with a tail 13 light years long:
A large star in its death throes is leaving a huge, turbulent tail of oxygen, carbon and nitrogen in its wake that makes it look like an immense comet hurtling through space, astronomers say . . . .
The star is rocketing through our Milky Way galaxy at 130 kilometres per second, literally faster than a speeding bullet.
And it's spewing material that scientists believe may be recycled into new stars, planets and maybe even life.
"We believe that the tail is made up of material that is being shed by the star which is heating up and then spiralling back into this turbulent wake," says Professor Christopher Martin of the California Institute of Technology, one of the researchers in the study published in the journal Nature.
(Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
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