Lets learn something about space

Today's topic: Rigel "The left leg of the giant"



Seen above as the bright star on the right side of the photo, Rigel is the seventh brightest star in the sky. It shines 98,000(!) times brighter than our sun. It is a member of Orion, a mere 850 light years away. For reference, 1 light year is equal to 6,000,000,000,000 miles. So, you can look outside with your naked eye and see this star that is 5,100 trillion miles away.

Rigel is a blue supergiant, that is only 10 million years old. Our sun is 4.6 billion years old, so this star is basically a newborn baby. Except this newborn baby fuses hydrogen into helium at roughly 19,000 degrees farenheit.

In order for Earth to survive around this star, we would have to be 200 times further away from it than we are from our sun, or 5 times as far as pluto. Rigel has a width of 70 times that of our sun, making it one big baw. So big, that one day when it explodes as a supernova, it will form a black hole. Black holes are only formed when supermassive stars collapse on themselves. It is believed that if a star is bigger than 3 solar masses, it will form a black hole. This star is 14 solar masses.

Rigel's name is on a a number of planets in the Star Trek universe, is mentioned in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and also features in a number of novels, computer games and comic books.