Star Search

A trio of supergiant stars, the largest stars ever discovered, have been spotted about 9,000 light years away. Isn't it amazing we can even see what's going on 9,000 light years away? I mean, that's far. That means, if you traveled at the speed of light, it would take you 9,000 years to get there.

(NOTE: You didn't believe that, did you? I don't know what the hell a light year means. Just that it's way out there).

So, yeah, I don't know a lot about astronomy, but this is really interesting stuff. Here's another thing I don't get, though...If we are seeing light coming from these stars, and supergiant stars are stars that have cooled considerably as they near the end of their "life," then doesn't that mean these stars actually burned out millions of years ago? And it just takes a long time for the light from them to reach us?

Cause that's what I thought, but this Yahoo article makes it sound like these stars are hanging around right now, dying out, which would sort of contradict everything remember from science class. That probably means it's correct, because I remember very little useful information from high school science class, except that photosynthesis includes something called the Citric Acid Cycle and that it's a good idea to sit diagonally behind the person you want to cheat off of, rather than right next to them, making your wandering eye harder to spot.

The other tidbit from the article that caught my eye...did you know there's a bigass star named Betelguise? That's how Beetlejuice spells his name from the movie. Is this intentional? If so, what's the joke? Or did Tim Burton and Company just think it was a cool-sounding name? I don't get it...