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Unwrapping The Galaxy
![](http://media.popularmechanics.com/images/150*128/supergiantsim_freytag.jpg)
![](http://media.popularmechanics.com/designimages/clicktoenlarge.gif) SIMULATED SUPERGIANT STAR Image by B. Freytag, (Institute for Astronomy and Space Physics, Univ. Uppsala)
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When Rochester Institute of Technology astronomers peeled off a layer of Milky Way, it wasnt caramel and nougat that they found inside. They discovered a massive star cluster on the verge of exploding. The group of 14 red supergiantssupersized stars whose mass together is more than 20,000 times that of the sunwas discovered using infrared technology to penetrate the thick dust of the Milky Way galaxy. The discovery forces current massive star formation models back to the drawing board, and allows astronomers to construct a better snapshot of the final moments of a stars life. But there's still plenty of time to go grab a candy bar before the high-energy falloutthese stars wont explode in our lifetime.Andrew Nusca
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