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Massive Stars and their approximate Size

Astronomers have found massive stars in the early universe, primarily located in distant galaxies that formed shortly after the Big Bang. These regions are often studied through advanced telescopes capable of observing very distant light, such as the Hubble Space Telescope and the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope. In terms of size, these monster stars can have diameters ranging from about 100 to over 300 times that of our Sun. The Sun’s diameter is approximately 1.4 million kilometers (about 864,000 miles), so these massive stars could be approximately 140 million to over 420 million kilometers (about 87 million to 261 million miles) in diameter.

Enabling longer space missions

The 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing has reignited interest in space travel. However, almost any mission beyond the moon, whether manned or unmanned, will require the spacecraft to remain fully operational for at least several years. The Hall thruster is a propulsion system that is often used by craft involved in long missions. A recent study by Andrey Shashkov and co-workers at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Russia has shown how the operating lives of these systems can be further extended; their work was recently published in The European Physical Journal D.

from Space Exploration News - Space News, Space Exploration, Space Science, Earth Sciences https://ift.tt/2KZwxnz

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