Daily Image
20-11-2018
Cosmic serpent reveals new way massive stars die
| Submitter: | Joseph Callingham |
| Description: | An international team of researchers led by Joe Callingham (ASTRON) have used the VISIR instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope to capture this stunning image of a newly discovered massive triple star system. Nicknamed Apep, this may be the first ever gamma-ray burst progenitor found. The mid-infrared image shows the dust encircling the system, which is produced downstream of the energetic colliding winds found in the inner binary. Such a pattern encodes the orbital and rotational parameters of the stars and system, providing an insight into how the massive stars are losing mass. Apep is also the brightest colliding wind binary discovered in the radio outside of the enigmatic Eta Carinae. The paper detailing the discovery and physics of Apep is published today in Nature Astronomy and on arXiv. The Nature blog detailing the discovery of the system is detailed available here: https://goo.gl/fuX9Sg Public relations details about the system can be found here: https://www.astron.nl/cosmic-serpent-reveals-new-way-massive-stars-die and https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1838/ |
| Copyright: | ESO / Callingham et al. |
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