Dances Overhead
Monday, June 29, 2015: Astrophotographer Matt Milone caught an aurora in the White Mountains of New Hampshire on June 23, 2015. He writes in an email message to Space.com: “Such an incredible night [...] watching the aurora pulse overhead. Never before have I seen the aurora so clearly dancing, not only in front of me, but right overhead as well!”
— Tom Chao
Winds of Change Are Blowing Hard
Tuesday, June 30, 2015: Galaxy SBS 1415+437 or SDSS CGB 12067.1 floats roughly 45 million light-years away from Earth. Astronomers consider SBS 1415+437 a Wolf–Rayet galaxy, a type of starbursting galaxy filled with an remarkably large number of extremely hot and massive stars known as Wolf–Rayet stars. These stars can measure around 20 times as massive as the sun, but are depleting themselves as fast as possible, spewing forth winds of particles. A typical star of this type can lose a mass equal to that of our sun in 100,000 years. Wolf-Rayet stars have short lifetimes, therefore galaxies usually contain few of these stars, except in Wolf–Rayet galaxies.
— Tom Chao
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