Darth Vader take heart. Astronomers have discovered a powerful ultraviolet laser beam, several times brighter than our Sun, shooting toward Earth from a super-hot "death star." The observations, made with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have identified a gas cloud that acts as a natural ultraviolet laser, near the huge, unstable star called Eta Carinae — one of most massive and energetic stars in our Milky Way Galaxy. The interstellar laser may result from Eta Carinae's violently chaotic eruptions, in which it blasts parts of itself out into space, like an interstellar geyser. Sveneric Johansson, a specialist in atomic spectroscopy at
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Topics of Interest
Observations of a massive, unstable star called Eta Carinae, made with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera (WF/PC) aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope HST, reveal surprising and complex new structure...
A NASA Hubble Space Telescope "natural color" image of the material surrounding the star Eta Carinae, as imaged by the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC-2). The Camera was installed in the...
A monthly showcase of new and archival Hubble images. Go to the Dramatic dark dust knots and complex structures are sculpted by the high-velocity stellar winds and high-energy radiation from the...
Using a unique capability of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST) astronomers announced today that they have detected the rare element boron in an ancient star. This element may be "fossil"...
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has provided a detailed look at the fitful, eruptive, and dynamic processes accompanying the final stages of a star's "construction." Images from the orbiting...
