NASA - Mira: A Star with a Comet's Tail
A friend pointed me to this story, about the star Mira. Oddly, due to its strange, fast motion relative to the rest of the galaxy, the red giant star has developed a tail like a comet as it hurtles through the galaxy. The tail is 13 light years long and its the first time anything like this has ever been seen.
While the physics of how a tail would develop seem clear--its like the wake behind a boat, just what would cause a star to move at such a fast rate, out of sync with the rest of the galaxy, is a very good question.
Posted by Jvstin at August 16, 2007 4:42 AM