Scientists share close-up look at cosmic ‘lawn sprinkler’

By Dean Murray via SWNS

Space scientists say they have spotted a cosmic "lawn sprinkler".

NASA says their Hubble Space Telescope has provided "a dramatic and colorful" close-up look at one of the "most rambunctious stars in our galaxy".

Located approximately 700 light-years away, a binary star system called R Aquarii has been observed undergoing violent eruptions that blast out huge filaments of glowing gas, "weaving a huge spiral pattern among the stars."

NASA said : "The twisted stellar outflows make the region look like a lawn sprinkler gone berserk."

The space agency says it dramatically demonstrates how the universe redistributes the products of nuclear energy that form deep inside stars and jet back into space.

R Aquarii belongs to a class of double stars called symbiotic stars. The primary star is an aging red giant and its companion is a compact burned-out star known as a white dwarf.

The red giant primary star is classified as a Mira variable that is over 400 times larger than our Sun.

NASA said: "The bloated monster star pulsates, changes temperature, and varies in brightness by a factor of 750 times over a roughly 390-day period. At its peak, the star is blinding at nearly 5,000 times our Sun's brightness."

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