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VY Canis Majoris
This week we’re going to talk about famous stars. But not those boring human ones you read about in People magazine. No, we’re talking about those hot balls of plasma across the distant Universe. The close ones, the bright ones, the massive ones, the giant ones. Let’s get to know some famous stars.
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Shownotes
- MOST FAMOUS: Polaris — UIUC
- How to find Polaris — GSFC
- Misconceptions about the North Star (“Constant as the North Star” — Shakespeare)
- Cepheid Variable stars
- MOST POWERFUL: Eta Carinae — APOD
- Hypernova — Wiki
- BRIGHTEST (But not most luminous): Sirius
- Binary Stars
- BIGGEST: VY Canis Majoris
- Red Supergiants — GSU
- Video: Biggest Stars in the Universe
- SMALLEST: Ogle TR-122b — Universe Today
- Red Dwarf Stars
- SMALLEST STAR THAT IS NOT A RED DWARF: White Dwarf Stars
- CLOSEST: Proxima Centauri — AAO
- Alpha Centauri System — APOD
- MOST LIKELY TO EXPLODE: Betelgeuse and Eta Carinae
- Helix Nebula — HubbleSite
- Crab Nebula
- 2012 Stupidity — Universe Today
- FASTEST MOVING: RX J0822-4300 — Chandra
- Neutron Stars
- FIRST STAR FOUND TO HAVE A PLANET: 51 Pegasus
- Extra Solar Planets — Planet Quest
- FIRST STAR TO FOUND TO HAVE PLANETARY SYSTEM: PSR B1257+12
- Pulsar
- OTHER FAMOUS STARS FROM SCIENCE FICTION:
- Wolf 359
- The Battle of Wolf 359 on Star Trek (Resistance is futile; You will be assimilated)
- Epsilon Eridani
- a.k.a. Vulcan
- McDonald Observatory
Transcript
Coming Soon!
October 13, 2009
Don’t forget Wolf 359 was on the original Outer Limits in 1964. They depicted it as having a solar system too.
Love the show, thanks.
October 13, 2009
The most famous star is probably the sun…
October 13, 2009
With the star that you mentioned that was ‘passing through’ the galaxy at high speed, this reminds me of a discussion on “hypervelocity stars” in another podcast interview with a Dr Church from Cambridge Uni – very interesting stuff. Who knew there was still so much to learn about stars? 🙂
October 13, 2009
oops forgot the link
http://tinyurl.com/yhxw57a
October 14, 2009
Rigel was also mentioned in Star Trek on a number of occasions. This was one of my favorite episodes to date, but enjoy them all. Keep them coming!!
October 14, 2009
Umm, I cant find any shownotes or transcripts from the famous stars episode? I was particularly after the link Pamela mentioned to the video of a flythrough showing the scales of star sizes.
October 14, 2009
156 episodes… seems that unless I suck more at math than I think I do, that is 3 whole years!!!
Congrats to Pamela and Frasier!
October 15, 2009
Fun show –
Here’s one video showing the scales – great music aside!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEheh1BH34Q&feature=related
October 20, 2009
VY Canis Majoris is the biggest star we can see. Can stars be bigger than even this behemoth!
October 21, 2009
Oh man, I hate to be the huge canon nerd here, but I have to ask for a correction.
Epsilon Eridani is not the home star system of the Vulcans in “Star Trek” canon. 40 Eridani A is. But it’s still a cool star system! Seriously!
October 22, 2009
I thought there was some repetition in this episode, or not? Like a technical problem or something. Anyway, I really enjoyed it. Thanks a lot, Fraser and Pamela!
October 25, 2009
This was a very enjoyable episode. I am recommending it to friends. Thank you for helping me to better understand astronomy through these 156 episodes and questions shows. Please keep them coming!
November 10, 2009
I think Epsilon Eridani was the home of Babylon 5
December 2, 2012
the sun is the famouse star