Posted: Mar 04, 2010 12:50 pm
Pretty, pretty Mira...
I saw (read "had on in the background") a documentary about Mira, and from what i recall the tail is approximately 13ly long and is produced as a result of Mira's enormous velocity. As happens with any fast moving object (that isn't in a perfect vacuum), Mira has a bow shock, which results in the luminous (in UV) long tail. Also, if humans could see in UV, the tail would be easily visable to us with the naked eye.
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap070817.html
I saw (read "had on in the background") a documentary about Mira, and from what i recall the tail is approximately 13ly long and is produced as a result of Mira's enormous velocity. As happens with any fast moving object (that isn't in a perfect vacuum), Mira has a bow shock, which results in the luminous (in UV) long tail. Also, if humans could see in UV, the tail would be easily visable to us with the naked eye.
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap070817.html