Stellar science: A turbulent wake
A stunning ultraviolet image of a turbulent wind wake produced by the binary star Mira offers a new, unprecedented direct measure of the star’s mass loss history.
Stars such as Mira — in the late stages of stellar evolution and with low-to-intermediate mass — return a large fraction of their original mass to the interstellar medium through the dusty, molecular winds they send out. This means they have a direct affect on subsequent star and planet formation in their host galaxy.
D. Christopher Martin and colleagues report the discovery of an ultraviolet-emitting bow shock and turbulent wake extending over 2 degrees on the sky, produced by the interaction of Mira’s stellar wind and the ambient interstellar medium.
The wind wake is a tracer of the last 30,000 years of Mira’s mass loss history. In the past, observations of interactions between Mira-type stellar winds and the interstellar medium have been in the infrared.
CONTACT
D. Christopher Martin (California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA)
Tel: +1 626 395 4243; E-mail: cmartin@srl.caltech.edu
Thursday, August 16, 2007
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