Luminous Blue Variable (LBV) tagged posts

The notorious Luminous Blue Variable Star

A snapshot from a simulation of the churning gas that blankets a star 80 times the sun's mass. Intense light from the star's core pushes against helium-rich pockets in the star's exterior, launching material outward in spectacular geyser-like eruptions. The solid colors denote radiation intensity, with bluer colors representing regions of larger intensity. The translucent purplish colors represent the gas density, with lighter colors denoting denser regions. Credit: Joseph Insley/Argonne Leadership Computing Facility

A snapshot from a simulation of the churning gas that blankets a star 80 times the sun’s mass. Intense light from the star’s core pushes against helium-rich pockets in the star’s exterior, launching material outward in spectacular geyser-like eruptions. The solid colors denote radiation intensity, with bluer colors representing regions of larger intensity. The translucent purplish colors represent the gas density, with lighter colors denoting denser regions. Credit: Joseph Insley/Argonne Leadership Computing Facility

New, 3D simulations reveal the inner workings of one of the universe’s most mysterious stars...

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Astronomers blown away by historic Stellar Blast

Color image taken with the Hubble Space Telecope’s WFPC2 camera, showing the dumbbell-shaped cloud of gas and dust around the star. This nebula contains more than 10 times the mass of our Sun, which was ejected by Eta Carinae in the 19th century Great Eruption. Credit: N. Smith (U. Arizona) and NASA.

Color image taken with the Hubble Space Telecope’s WFPC2 camera, showing the dumbbell-shaped cloud of gas and dust around the star. This nebula contains more than 10 times the mass of our Sun, which was ejected by Eta Carinae in the 19th century Great Eruption.
Credit: N. Smith (U. Arizona) and NASA.

Observations from the Gemini South and other telescopes in Chile played a critical role in understanding light echoes from a stellar eruption which occurred almost 200 years ago. Gemini spectroscopy shows that ejected material from the blast is the fastest ever seen from a star that remained intact. Imagine traveling to the Moon in just 20 seconds! That’s how fast material from a 170 year old stellar eruption sped away from the unstable, eruptive, and extremely massive star Eta Carinae.

Astro...

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