Apr. 8th, 2010
I love living in the future.
Apr. 8th, 2010 11:20 amEpsilon Aurigae: An eclipsing binary star. Every 27 years, a cold disk-shaped object more than 4 AU across passes in front of the star.
Let's repeat that: an opaque, cold disk, 30 light-minutes across, is orbiting a star, and *we can see it*.
(For bonus points: The disk has a hole in the middle *that contains another star*, they're pretty sure - the hole hasn't crossed the star yet in the current eclipse, so they're working off of observations from the mid-1980s until the current eclipse progresses a little further.)
Let's repeat that: an opaque, cold disk, 30 light-minutes across, is orbiting a star, and *we can see it*.
(For bonus points: The disk has a hole in the middle *that contains another star*, they're pretty sure - the hole hasn't crossed the star yet in the current eclipse, so they're working off of observations from the mid-1980s until the current eclipse progresses a little further.)
