CROATIAN ASTRONOMERS DISCOVER NEW STAR

VISNJAN, June 12 (Hina) - A bright star, hitherto unmarked on astronomical charts, was spotted in the Scorpio constellation by telescopes at an observatory at Visnjan, on the Croatian peninsula of Istria, at 3 a.m. on May 23. The discovery was immediately communicated to the nearest observatories and the International Astronomical Union at Harvard University in the United States, a statement from the Visnjan observatory said on Wednesday. Subsequent research has shown that the star is so distant that it takes several dozens of thousands of years before its light reaches the Earth. The newly-found star, with a radius of 400 to 500 million km (the Sun has a 1.5 million km radius), is so big that it would engulf the Earth if it were situated in our galaxy. Since the star is old and has nearly exhausted its nuclear fuel supply, it pulsates and changes its brightness more than a thousand times in over 400 days. The star's bright red colour indicates that its temperature is about 2,300 degrees Celsius. The first such star was discovered by the Dutch astronomist David Fabricius on August 13, 1596, and was called "Omicron ceti". In 1662, astronomers noticed that its shine rises and falls periodically so they called it Mira (Latin for admirable or wonderful). After that, all newly-discovered stars with similar features are given the name "Mira". (hina) jn vm as 122245 MET jun 96