CXC: Two Stars, Three Dimensions, and Oodles of Energy

[bystander]

V745 Sco: Two Stars, Three Dimensions, and Oodles of Energy
NASA | MSFC | SAO | Chandra X-ray Observatory | 2017 Sep 18

[c][imghover=http://chandra.si.edu/photo/2017/v745/v745.jpg]http://chandra.si.edu/photo/2017/v745/v745_labeled.jpg[/imghover]Illustration: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss[/c][hr][/hr]

For decades, astronomers have known about irregular outbursts from the double star system V745 Sco, which is located about 25,000 light years from Earth. Astronomers were caught by surprise when previous outbursts from this system were seen in 1937 and 1989. When the system erupted on February 6, 2014, however, scientists were ready to observe the event with a suite of telescopes including NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.

V745 Sco is a binary star system that consists of a red giant star and a white dwarf locked together by gravity. These two stellar objects orbit so closely around one another that the outer layers of the red giant are pulled away by the intense gravitational force of the white dwarf. This material gradually falls onto the surface of the white dwarf. Over time, enough material may accumulate on the white dwarf to trigger a colossal thermonuclear explosion, causing a dramatic brightening of the binary called a nova. Astronomers saw V745 Sco fade by a factor of a thousand in optical light over the course of about 9 days.

Astronomers observed V745 Sco with Chandra a little over two weeks after the 2014 outburst. Their key finding was it appeared that most of the material ejected by the explosion was moving towards us. To explain this, a team of scientists from the INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Palermo, the University of Palermo, and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics constructed a three-dimensional (3D) computer model of the explosion, and adjusted the model until it explained the observations. In this model they included a large disk of cool gas around the equator of the binary caused by the white dwarf pulling on a wind of gas streaming away from the red giant.

Origin of Asymmetries in X-ray Emission Lines from the Blast Wave of
the 2014 Outburst of Nova V745 Sco - S. Orlando, J. J. Drake, M. Miceli

• Monthly Notices of the RAS 464(4):5003 (Feb 2017) DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stw2718
  arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1610.05692 > 18 Oct 2016

[neufer]

oodles (n.) "lots," 1867, American English (originally in a Texas context), perhaps from the caboodle in kit and caboodle.

kit and caboodle (n.) 1870, earlier kit and boodle (1855), kit and cargo (1848), according to OED from kit (n.1) in dismissive sense "number of things viewed as a whole" (1785) + boodle "lot, collection," perhaps from Dutch boedel "property." Century Dictionary compares the whole kit, of persons, "every one" (1785).