You feel the vibrations as the rocket lifts off from the launch pad. This cramped spaceship is your home for two years as you journey all the way out to Jupiter, the Solar System's largest planet. It's so far away that when you get there the Sun's light is a mere 1/25th as bright as on Earth.
And yet, if you were to make a journey of the same distance in some planetary systems, you'd still be inside the star. These celestial beasts - known as hypergiant stars - are colossal. The biggest can fit 10 billion Suns inside, or 14 quadrillion Earths.
Such monsters are rare, but they play a crucial role in seeding the Universe with the rich array of chemistry required to sustain life. Their scarcity means they've been poorly understood in the past, but a run of recent research is giving astronomers unprecedented insights into their unique behaviour. Soon we may know their secrets.
Bizarre behemoths
Hypergiants are so massive, typically dozens of times the mass of the Sun or more, that they are highly unstable. They regularly cough huge quantities of their material back into space. "They are throwing out the mass of Jupiter or more in a single event," says Roberta Humphreys, an astrophysicist at the University of Minnesota.
A similar event on a smaller scale unfolded on the supergiant star Betelgeuse in 2019, when it dimmed noticeably in the night sky before brightening again. Painstaking analysis concluded that it spat out material weighing several times the mass of the Moon from its southern hemisphere. That material blocked out some of Betelgeuse's light, causing the temporary dimming. It was the first time astronomers had seen such a huge ejection from the surface of a star in real time.
Denne historien er fra May 2023-utgaven av BBC Sky at Night Magazine.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra May 2023-utgaven av BBC Sky at Night Magazine.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Could We Find Aliens by Looking for Their Solar Panels?- Designed to reflect ultraviolet and infrared, the panels have a unique fingerprint
Researchers searching for life beyond Earth spend a lot of time thinking about what telltale signs might be detectable astronomically. Forms of unambiguous evidence for the presence of life on another world are known as biosignatures. By extension, techno signatures are indicators of activity by intelligent, civilisation-building life.
Antimatter- In our continuing series, Govert Schilling looks at antimatter, the strange counterpart to most of the matter filling our Universe
Particles and corresponding antiparticles are very much alike, except they have opposite electrical charges. For instance, the antiparticle of the electron - known as the positron - has the same tiny mass, but while electrons carry a negative electrical charge, positrons are positively charged.
Where Have All The Milky Way's Early Stars Gone?- Our Galaxy has a curious lack of pristine stars
The Big Bang produced a Universe filled almost exclusively with hydrogen and helium; all other elements - what astronomers call metals - were produced by stars, supernovae and everything that happens later. So if you can pick out a pristine star with no metals polluting it from among the billions in the Milky Way, then you are likely to have a star dating from our Galaxy's earliest days.
Inside The Sky At Night - Two years ago, exoplanet scientist Hannah Wakeford received some of the first data from the JWST
Two years ago, exoplanet scientist Hannah Wakeford received some of the first data from the JWST. In July's Sky at Night, we discovered what she's learned since then.
How to stack DSLR data in Siril
Easily combine multiple frames to boost detailin your astro photos
Lunar occultation of Saturn
You'll need to strike a balance on 21 August to capture the Moon covering the ringed planet
How to plot a variable star light curve
A rewarding project to chart stars that change brightness
Smartphone photography with a telescope
Mary Mcintyre explains how to get impressive night-sky images using your phone
Once-a-century solar storm is overdue
If a Carrington Event struck today it would be catastrophic, says Minna Palmroth
The new era of human spaceflight
There's been a step-change in crewed space missions since the dawn of the 21st century. Ben Evans charts its course and looks ahead to future horizons
