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    Pair of Colliding Stars Spill Radioactive molecules into Space

    August 2, 2018, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    This is an artist impression of the collision of two stars, like the ones that formed CK Vul. The inset illustrates the inner structure of one red giant before the merger. A thin layer of 26-aluminum (brown) surrounds a helium core. An extended convective envelope (not to scale), which forms the outermost layer of the star, can mix material from inside the star to the surface, but it never reaches deep enough to dredge 26-aluminum up to the surface. Only a collision with another star can disperse 26-aluminum. Credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF; S. Dagnello

    This is an artist impression of the collision of two stars, like the ones that formed CK Vul. The inset illustrates the inner structure of one red giant before the merger. A thin layer of 26-aluminum (brown) surrounds a helium core. An extended convective envelope (not to scale), which forms the outermost layer of the star, can mix material from inside the star to the surface, but it never reaches deep enough to dredge 26-aluminum up to the surface. Only a collision with another star can disperse 26-aluminum.
    Credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF; S. Dagnello

    Astronomers have made the first definitive detection of a radioactive molecule in interstellar space: a form, or isotopologue of aluminum monofluoride (26AlF)...

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