A Dying Star One Thousand Times Bigger Than The Sun Could Soon Explode

One of the brightest stars in the sky has been noticeably getting dimmer. Betelgeuse, a reddish star that is part of the Orion constellation, may be entering a pre-supernova phase - where it gets fainter before collapsing in a fiery explosion. A supernova is a powerful stellar explosion that occurs when a star 'dies'.

Search For Alien Llife Begins As World's Largest Radio Telescope Starts Operating

BEIJING, CHINA: The world's largest radio telescope began operating in southwestern China Sunday, a project which Beijing says will help humanity search for alien life. The Five-hundred-metre Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST), nestled between hills in the mountainous region of Guizhou, began working around noon, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Our Solar System

Ancient astronomers observed points of light that appeared to move among the stars.The Solar System comprises the Sun and the objects that orbit it.The Solar System formed 4.6 billion years ago from the gravitational collapse of a giant molecular cloud. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun, with most of the remaining mass contained in Jupiter. The four smaller inner planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, also called the terrestrial planets, are primarily composed of rock and metal. The four outer planets, called the gas giants, are substantially more massive than the terrestrials. The two largest, Jupiter and Saturn, are composed mainly of hydrogen and helium; the two outermost planets, Uranus and Neptune, are composed largely of substances with relatively high melting points (compared with hydrogen and helium), called ices, such as water, ammonia and methane, and are often referred to separately as "ice giants". All planets have almost circular orbits that lie within a nearly flat disc called the ecliptic plane.

Black hole

A black hole is defined as a region of spacetime from which gravity prevents anything, including light, from escaping. The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will deform spacetime to form a black hole. Around a black hole, there is a mathematically defined surface called an event horizon that marks the point of no return. The hole is called "black" because it absorbs all the light that hits the horizon, reflecting nothing, just like a perfect black body in thermodynamics.

Supermassive Black Hole About to Eat Gas Cloud?

A simulation shows how a gas cloud approaching our galaxy's supermassive black hole may break apart.