Great Balls of Fire detected by NASA
Q. What are the Great Balls of Fire?- Published on 12 Oct 16a. Super hot blobs of gas being ejected near a dying star
b. Rays of the sun
c. Light emitted from a dying star
d. None of the above
ANSWER: Super hot blobs of gas being ejected near a dying star
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope in the first week of Oct 2016 detected the Great Balls of Fire.
- These superheat blobs of gas, twice as large as planet Mars were being ejected near a dying star
- These plasma balls were moving so fast through space it would take only 30 minutes for them to travel from Earth to the moon
- Observations indicated that these balls of fire have been appearing every 8.5 years for at least part four centuries
- Gas balls were observed near a red giant called V Hydra about 1200 light years away from earth
- If scientists can find out where these balls are coming from, it could explain weird shapes seen in clouds of gas around the dying stars, which have been difficult for scientists to explain
- The Hubble Space Telescope is a space telescope launched into low Earth orbit in the 1990s – it remains in operation and could last till 2030-2040
- This is one of the largest and most versatile vital research tools and a public relations boon for astronomy
- It is named after astronomer Edwin Hubble and is one of NASA’s Great Observatories along with the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, the Chandra X-ray observatory and the Spitzer Space Telescope
- With a 2.4m mirror, it has 4 main instruments observed in the near ultraviolet, visible and near infrared spectra
- It was built by US space agency NASA with contribution from the ESA
- Space Telescope Science Institute selects Hubble’s targets and processes the resulting data while the Goddard Space Flight Centre controls the spacecraft
- It is the only telescope designed to be serviced by astronauts in space
- Scientific successor to the Hubble, the James Webb Space Telescope is scheduled for launch in 2018
