Posted Jul 24, 2008 at 10:35AM by Gino D.
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Science
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Polaris,
North Star
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The North Star, otherwise known as Polaris, has continuously been giving low vibration frequencies for the past hundred years. This has led some scientists to believe that the star is about to fade and switch itself off completely.Recent observations, however, reveal a startling discovery: the star is somehow jump-starting itself back to life. (huh? and I never knew it was "dying" in the first place!) See, over the course of a century, the star's surface has been observed to vary in its velocity - expanding and contracting as time goes by. Dr. Alan Penny from the School of Physics and Astronomy down at the University of St. Andrews elaborates their findings: One hundred years ago Polaris varied by 10%, but over the last century the variations became smaller and smaller until ten years ago it only varied by 2%. It was thought the structure of the star was changing to switch off the vibration. Yet the team has found that about ten years ago the vibrations started picking up and are now back up at the 4% level. As of now, they have no explanation for this strange occurrence. In fact, the decline in vibrations is a strange phenomenon in itself. That's because Polaris has always been considered as a Cepheid. Cepheids are used as a "standard candle" - a basis to measure the size of the Universe. Be that as it may, no one's ever really even understood Cepheids' vibration behaviors to begin with, so we may just be seeing something that's totally normal - only it hasn't been recorded yet prior to this. Related articles: |
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[Via Phsyorg]
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