supergiant star tagged posts

Stars over eight times more massive than the Sun end their lives in supernovae explosions. The composition of the star influences what happens during the explosion.

A considerable number of massive stars have a close companion star. Led by researchers at Kyoto University, a team of international researchers observed that some stars exploding as supernovae may release part of their hydrogen layers to their companion stars before the explosion.

“In a binary star system, the star ...

Far-IR Planck 857 GHz (left panel), mid-IR WISE 12µm (central panel, image from Meisner & Finkbeiner 2014) and velocity integrated CO image (right panel, from CfA CO survey of Dame et al. 2001) around Kappa Ori. Green symbols mark the positions of WISE objects with IR excess. Contours are the footprints of XMM-Newton observations. The dust ring is visible at far-IR and millimeter wavelengths while it appears like a bubble of diffuse emission in mid IR. Credit: Pillitteri et al., 2016.

Astronomers have spotted a star-forming ring around a distant star Kappa Ori at the south-eastern corner of the constellation of Orion. The star, also known as Saiph, is a supergiant with a mass of approximately 15 solar masses ~650 light years from Earth...