|
©Unknown
|
The Earth may be in the firing line when one of the sky's most beautiful objects explodes, according to University of Sydney astronomer Peter Tuthill.
Dr Tuthill discovered the elegant rotating pinwheel system, named WR104, eight years ago in the constellation Sagittarius. It includes a highly unstable star known as a Wolf-Rayet, widely regarded by astronomers as ticking bombs - the last stop in a star's life before a cataclysmic supernova explosion.
"When it finally explodes as a supernova, it could emit an intense beam of gamma rays coming our way", says Dr Tuthill, whose work is published in the latest edition of the
Astrophysical Journal.