Newscenter Update: Hubble Detects Giant 'Cannonballs' Shooting from Star

October 6, 2016 Artists' concept Get larger image formats   Find the entire Hubble News archive, image galleries, and much more at hubblesite.org Stay Connected   Hubble Detects Giant 'Cannonballs' Shooting from Star Great balls of fire! The Hubble Space Telescope has detected superhot blobs of gas, each twice as massive as the planet Mars, being ejected near a dying star. The plasma balls are zooming so fast through space that they would travel from Earth to the moon in 30 minutes. This stellar "cannon fire" has continued once every 8.5 years for at least the past 400 years, astronomers estimate. The fireballs present a puzzle to astronomers because the ejected material could not have been shot out by the host star, called V Hydrae. The star is a bloated red giant, residing 1,200 light-years away, which has probably shed at least half of its mass into space during its death throes. RELEASE LINKS: See full release More Images Fast Facts This news release and its supporting materials are permanently archived at: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2016/34/ You are receiving this email because you are subscribed to the Inbox Astronomy mailing list, which sends notices in HTML whenever there is a new Hubble Space Telescope image, product, or news update. If you would like to unsubscribe or change your email preferences, please go to: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/hubble_on_the_go/inbox_astronomy/