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Moon and Antares
Manage episode 482717139 series 178791
The human eye is amazing. It can focus on objects near and far, provide a three-dimensional look at the world, and see under both brilliant sunlight and the faint glow of the stars. It also sees all the colors of the rainbow – from red and orange to blue and violet.
Yet there’s a lot more that the eye can’t see – wavelengths that are beyond its range. That means we’re missing much of what the universe is showing us.
Consider Antares, the heart of the scorpion. The star is just a whisker away from the Moon as they climb into view this evening.
Antares is one of the brightest pinpoints in the night sky. And it shines with a distinctly orange hue. But there’s a lot more to it than that.
For one thing, Antares consists of two stars, not one. The one we see is a supergiant – many times the Sun’s mass, and hundreds of times its diameter. At visible wavelengths, it shines about 10,000 times brighter than the Sun, with a distinctly orange color.
But the star is much cooler than the Sun. Such stars produce most of their energy in the infrared – wavelengths too long for the human eye. So when you add that in, Antares is about a hundred thousand times the Sun’s brightness.
The other star of Antares is much hotter than the Sun. So most of its light is in the ultraviolet – wavelengths that are too short for the eye. So it is about three thousand times the Sun’s brightness – much more than the eye can see.
Script by Damond Benningfield
2867 episodes
Manage episode 482717139 series 178791
The human eye is amazing. It can focus on objects near and far, provide a three-dimensional look at the world, and see under both brilliant sunlight and the faint glow of the stars. It also sees all the colors of the rainbow – from red and orange to blue and violet.
Yet there’s a lot more that the eye can’t see – wavelengths that are beyond its range. That means we’re missing much of what the universe is showing us.
Consider Antares, the heart of the scorpion. The star is just a whisker away from the Moon as they climb into view this evening.
Antares is one of the brightest pinpoints in the night sky. And it shines with a distinctly orange hue. But there’s a lot more to it than that.
For one thing, Antares consists of two stars, not one. The one we see is a supergiant – many times the Sun’s mass, and hundreds of times its diameter. At visible wavelengths, it shines about 10,000 times brighter than the Sun, with a distinctly orange color.
But the star is much cooler than the Sun. Such stars produce most of their energy in the infrared – wavelengths too long for the human eye. So when you add that in, Antares is about a hundred thousand times the Sun’s brightness.
The other star of Antares is much hotter than the Sun. So most of its light is in the ultraviolet – wavelengths that are too short for the eye. So it is about three thousand times the Sun’s brightness – much more than the eye can see.
Script by Damond Benningfield
2867 episodes
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