The First photos revealed by him James Webb Space Telescope They astonished the world: stellar nurseries, bloated and alien exoplanets or dying stars showed that the new observatory had arrived to show us a new view of the universe. But it’s not just about getting “nice” photos. The main goal is to do science and understand many astronomical phenomena that we still don’t fully understand.
This is exactly what happened to one of the decks we were able to see from a different ‘look’ thanks to Webb. The The Southern Rings Nebula, 2,500 light-years away from us, looms large on the horizon, revealing two stars close together at its center: the faint red star is a dying star that has been emitting rings of gas and dust in all directions for millions of years. Besides him, a lighter companion seemed to be responsible for these random patterns, for which he also got his name The Eight Explosion Nebula.
However, a team of 70 astronomers from 66 organizations in Europe, America and Asia has reconstructed what this star’s explosion was like 2,500 years ago and how at least three other companions could have been involved in the process, which explains the irregular error. A pattern of stardust around it. The results have just been published in the journal ‘natural astronomy“.
Threads reveal details
“It was about three times the size of our sun, but much younger, about 500 million years old. It created barriers of gas that expanded from the ejection site, causing the white dwarf to have the same density as half the mass of the sun, but compressed to the size of the Earth,” he added. Explain. Marco Ursula, of the Center for Astronomy, Astrophysics and Astronomy Research at Macquarie University, and lead author of the study. “We were surprised to find evidence of two or three companion stars that likely precipitated the death of the main star, as well as an ‘innocent bystander’ caught up in this interaction,” he says.
The spark of initiation of the study began with the revealing of the images. They collected online and, in addition, supplemented the data with information collected by ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile; the San Pedro de Martyr Telescope in Mexico; the Gaia Space Telescope; and the Hubble Space Telescope. And so, they began developing theories and models to try and figure out the truth about that star’s death.
By examining the bright, straight lines that pierce the rings of gas and dust around the edges of the Southern Ring Nebula, the authors realized that these ‘rays’ appear to emanate from one or both of the two central stars, indicating where the light is streaming through. holes in the nebula. By projecting the straight lines, the researchers conclude that they may have been fired hundreds of years earlier and at a faster rate than those that appear thicker and more curved. It is possible that the second group is a mixture of materials that have been slowed down, creating less linear shapes.
The authors explain that initially, the system contained a red giant Something bigger than our Sun, which exploded when it ran out of hydrogen, swelled up. In the process, it removes its outer layers, expelling the surrounding material that makes up the nebula.
Looking closely at the near and mid-infrared images, they noticed bright, straight lines criss-crossed by rings of gas and dust around the edges of the Southern Ring Nebula. To see where they came from – and as if they were excellent detectives – they dropped lines in formation.
In fact, these rays seemed to come from one or both of the central stars, which are very dense white dwarfs that formed after the explosion. The researchers theorized that these rays were “fired” hundreds of years (and at a much faster rate) years before other material created this kind of irregular “ball,” which would have slowed down, forming this strange object. ranking.
Reconstruction of death
The authors looked at the center and noticed that the two stars that were perfectly captured in the images are, in fact, white dwarfs; And though it seems that one is greater than the other, They are the same size: the difference in brightness is that the redder one is covered with a lot of cool dust that forms a disc.
However, the presence of these two white dwarfs did not explain the irregular pattern of the nebula’s disks. By looking at a 3D reconstruction of the data, the team also saw pairs of bulges that can occur when astronomical objects eject material in a plane. These are irregular and shoot out in different directions, which may indicate an interaction of three stars in the center. That is, at least there was one more star than was thought. But the arrangement of dust and gas did not fit well into the triple system.
“We first inferred the presence of a close companion because of the dust disk around the central star, the additional companion that made the arcs, and the very distant companion that can be seen in the image,” DiMarco says. As soon as we saw the Jets, we knew there was another star or even two involved in the center, so we think there are one or two very close companions, an extra one in the middle distance, and one very far away, if that is the case.There are four or even five things involved in this chaotic death«.
How did the five stars form the Southern Ring Nebula? The first square shows a larger field with stars 1, 2, and 5, the last of which orbits star 1 much closer than star 2. The second square is much closer to the scene, and shows the other two stars (3 and 4); The star emits 3 bursts of particles, as can be seen in the image. The third inset shows that star 1 expands (gets bigger) as it ages. Stars 3 and 4 emit bursts of particles. In Part IV, we zoomed in to see how light and stellar winds carve a bubble-like cavity. Star 1 is surrounded by a disk of dust. In the innermost part, Star 5 interacts with the expelled gas and dust, generating the large ring system seen in the outer nebula. The sixth box depicts the scene as we see it today
So, the sequence would be like this, according to the authors: At first, there would be three very close stars (1, 3, and 4 in the upper reconstruction). Another will be relatively close to this group (5) and there will be a fifth far from the rest (2).
The main star (1) had expanded with age, while its closest companions (3 and 4) released bursts of particles. The stellar winds and interaction with all the stars in the system have created a particular halo of dust and gas that can be seen excavating a bubble-like cavity. The closest stars to the main stars will be hidden by the cold dust disk that surrounds the protagonist.
This is another example of strength James Webbthe most powerful space telescope ever sent into space that promises to reveal many mysteries still hidden in the universe.
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