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Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Binary System May Threaten Earth

Binary System May Threaten Earth

Clark Anderson

One of the stars in a binary system roughly 8,000 light years away is in the final stages of an evolution preceding a supernova. A binary system is a solar system with two stars in orbit around a center of mass. From Earth, the binary system known as WR 104 appears as a large spiral with a "tail" roughly 19 billion miles long.

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Saturday, February 23, 2008

The Milky Way Is Twice The Size We Thought It Was

The Milky Way Is Twice The Size We Thought It Was

Colleen Rowley

Debunking the long-standing view that the Milky Way Galaxy is 6,000 light years across, a team of scientists at the University of Sydney has discovered that distance is quite a bit larger. Shortly after reevaluating the data that scientists have traditionally used to measure the width of our galaxy, they were able to determine the distance closer to a staggering 12,000 light years across!

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