Astronomers from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) have reported new details about the extremely unstable and very large star Eta Carinae, a supernova explosion of which could lead to catastrophic consequences on Earth. The information was accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics.
The star Eta Carinae (η Carinae) was first recorded by the English astronomer Edmund Halley in 1677. During the 18th and early 19th centuries, the brightness of this star periodically decreased and increased. So in 1827, its brightness first increased rapidly, reaching a maximum in April 1843, which allowed it to surpass in brightness all other objects in the sky, not counting Sirius and the Moon.
Subsequent observations have shown that it is an incredibly mysterious binary system, which consists of a star of about 130 Suns and a companion between 30 and 80 solar masses. At the same time, the pressure of light inside the interior of a larger star is so great that bursts of activity inside Eta Carina practically deprive the star of its outer layers and carry them into open space. To date, researchers indicate that the star has already lost about thirty solar masses.
Scientist Gerd Weigelt from the Institute of Radio Astronomy in Bonn (Germany) is interested in how this process occurs and why the proximity to a larger star entails the ejection of most of Eta Carinae and forms nebulae around it. They were helped to solve the riddle by clear photographs of the star taken with the auxiliary instruments of the VLT observatory, which form a kind of huge virtual telescope. As a result, a very unusual region was discovered where the stellar winds of both stars collide and unusual structures are formed in matter. The rate of mass loss for the larger star was also measured.
Weigelt himself noted that these measurements will help to understand how quickly Eta Carinae will go into the supernova category and form an explosion, which, despite the distance, will threaten our planet.
Sources: Astronomy & Astrophysics
