Long-lasting fireworks spotted by space telescopes

[Shadow]

The flash of an earthly fireworks display can be over in an instant — sometimes literally (http://photoblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/07/05/12587835-big-bang-computer-glitch-to-blame-for-fireworks-malfunction-in-san-diego) — but the show is longer lasting in outer space. The dying red-giant star known as U Camelopardalis, 1,500 light-years away in a region of sky near the north celestial pole, is in the midst of a fireworks blast that lasts for centuries.

By human standards, U Cam's blast may seem like an eternity. The star's shining shell of glowing gas, documented in this picture from the Hubble Space Telescope (http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1227a/), has been traveling outward for something like 700 years, as Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait points out (http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/07/05/the-ghost-in-the-shell/). When the outward explosion began, Europe was suffering through famines and plagues (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Ages#War.2C_famine_and_plague), and the mainstream view was that our planet was the center of the universe.

http://photoblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/07/06/12602947-long-lasting-fireworks-spotted-by-space-telescopes?lite

[Noir]

Here's hoping it goes supernova in my lifetime, or even, 700 years before my lifetime.

[Shadow]

So... if U Cam is running low on fusion fuel...and kicks up these glowing clowds every few thousand years. How long is 'wont be long' exactly... in terms of...



But in the astronomical scheme of things, centuries are mere blinks of the eye — and it won't be long before U Cam gives up the ghost.