I chose this picture for today's APOD for multiple reasons. Because it is related to our current topic, because it's gorgeous, and also because it's incredibly fascinating. This image is of the star Zeta Ophiuchi, a runaway star. A runaway star is a star that is moving rapidly through space, which is basically the neatest thing ever. This star, 20 times larger than the sun, is moving at 24 kilometers per SECOND. A star! That's so ridiculous. It was most likely once part of a binary system, but when its other half exploded, it was flung out into space. It's about 460 light years away and would be one of the brightest stars in the sky, if it were not obscured by so much dust.
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