Astronomers have been baffled by the true identity of an unknown star for over a decade. 100 Years of the United StatesThe truth has finally been revealed.
HD 45166 has a very short life span. Wolf-RayetIt’s a star located 3,000 light-years from Earth. It’s a star that is similar to most of its peers. rich in heliumThe. Companion.
HD 45166 is also a good option. peculiar behaviorsNot seen anywhere else Wolf-Rayet starIts winds have an unusual pattern and a loss of mass that is higher than expected.
A team led by Tomer Shenar of University of Amsterdam, Netherlands, has now discovered that the strange beast has a magnetic field that is incredibly strong. This suggests that it will eventually pop its star clogs and transform into a magnetar.
HD 45166 is now the first magnetic Wolf-Rayet Star. It also solves some of the problems associated with the binary and fills in gaps in our understanding about how massive objects become the most magnetic in the Universe.
Wolf-rayet starThey are not common, but can be among the most spectacularStars Milky WayThe atomic fuel which powers the fusion within their cores is running out. They are very bright and hot and have very little hydrogen. However, they are rich in nitrogen and carbon.
The stars also lose mass rapidly via stellar winds. They are destined to become supernovas in a short period of time. After releasing the outer material, their core rapidly collapses. neutron starA dense object of up to 20 kilometers in diameter that contains up The Sun has a mass of 2.4..
MagnetarsThere are many types of neutron starBut with magnetic fields 1,000 times more powerful and impressive than a normal Neutron Star’s. Quadrillions of times more powerfulEarth’s.
Models suggest that the magnetic field could have been present in the star prior to the supernova or core collapse. It is not known if a star nearing the end of life had a strong magnetic field.
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HD 45166 is the next star we will look at. Prior measurements of the binary found that the Wolf Rayet star is rich in helium and around four times the mass as the Sun. It also orbits on a tight 1.6 day orbit with an B-type star. However, these properties are in conflict with what we currently know about binaries and the way stellar winds are generated.
“This star was a bit obsession of mine,” Shenar says. “I recall having a Eureka! moment while reading the literature. ‘What if a star is magnetic’?”
Shenar’s colleagues then took new observations of the binary star in search of evidence of magnetic fields. The team found the magnetic field, and a set of new measurements which almost completely recharacterized binary.
HD 45166, for example, has a magnetic strength of 43,000. gauss – that’s the most powerful magnetic field ever recorded in a massive star.
Secondly, the star is way less massive than we thought – only around 2 times the mass of the Sun.
Finally, the orbital phase of the binary star is an even larger 8,200 day, plus or minus. The 1.6 day periodicity detected previously is due to internal oscillations within the B type companion star.
It is not known how Wolf-Rayet came to be in its current state; however, the team believes that it may have come from a wolf-rayet. Two smaller stars. It seems like a very specific and perhaps rare scenario. So there may be other magnetar evolutionary paths.
HD 45166 will be expected to travel in a few millions of years. Supernova. The magnetic field will be concentrated by the collapsing center, which is a magnetar. It has a strength of about 100 trillion gauss.
We may not have lived to see the discovery, but this gives us a better understanding of magnetar formation. It also provides a base for finding similar systems in the Universe.
It is thrilling to discover a new astronomical object,” says Shenar“Especially when they’ve been hiding it in plain sight for so long.”
The research was published in Science.
