Universe Today - January 10, 2002

A new panoramic photograph taken by the Chandra X-Ray telescope shows the core of the Milky Way galaxy; a region teeming with over 1,000 high-energy objects that could be dying stars or black holes. The mosaic is made from 30 images taken by Chandra and then stitched together to form a larger image that contains just the centre of the Milky Way - an area 400 light-years by 900 light years.

Here's a piece of good news: the Earth won't be consumed by the Sun when it begins to die in 7.5 billion years. When stars like the Sun near death, they to expand many times their original size and become a Red Giant star. Astronomers originally calculated that the Sun will consume inner planets, including the Earth as it expands, but new research has given our planet a reprieve. As the Sun expands it will also shed material decreasing its gravitational hold on the Earth, spiraling our planet's orbit away from the sun. So, we won't actually be consumed, just burned to a crisp, radiated, and then frozen when the sun shrinks again. Whew.

Although you could see Comet Machholz 1 with the naked eye, it's not recommended that you try as it's currently right next to the Sun. The comet, which orbits the Sun every 63 months, missed the star by only 18 million kilometres this time. Although you can't see it, the NASA/ESA SOHO spacecraft was watching, and recorded a series of images that show the comet's flight.

Astronomers working on the formation of star systems have a theory about why planets might form where they do around a star. They believe that material falling from a loose cloud of dust into a protoplanetary disk is slowed down at the point where the disc begins. This "warm shock" area promotes material clumping together to form larger objects, including asteroids and even planets.