ESO VLTI Science Release | 2016 Oct 19
[img3="Credit: ESO/G. Weigelt"]https://cdn.eso.org/images/screen/eso1637a.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]An international team of astronomers have used the Very Large Telescope Interferometer to image the Eta Carinae star system in the greatest detail ever achieved. They found new and unexpected structures within the binary system, including in the area between the two stars where extremely high velocity stellar winds are colliding. These new insights into this enigmatic star system could lead to a better understanding of the evolution of very massive stars.
Led by Gerd Weigelt from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR) in Bonn, a team of astronomers have used the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) at ESO’s Paranal Observatory to take a unique image of the Eta Carinae star system in the Carina Nebula.
This colossal binary system consists of two massive stars orbiting each other and is very active, producing stellar winds which travel at velocities of up to ten million kilometres per hour. The zone between the two stars where the winds from each collide is very turbulent, but until now it could not be studied. ...
Eta Carinae: Violent Stellar Wind Collision in Binary Star Monster
Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy | 2016 Oct 19
VLTI-AMBER velocity-resolved aperture-synthesis imaging of Eta Carinae with a spectral resolution of 12000.
Studies of the primary star wind and innermost wind-wind collision - G. Weigelt et al
- Astronomy & Astrophysics 594:A106 (2016 Oct) DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/201628832
arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1610.05438 > 18 Oct 2016