Posted on Apr 26, 2021 in Astronomy, Astrophysics, Supernova
“I like studying these kinds of stars because I am fascinated by their instability. They are doing something weird,” said Kerstin Weis, a luminous blue variable expert at Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany. The Hubble Space Telescope recently captured the nebulosity surrounding the rare luminous blue variable star AG Carinae pictured above. Less than 50 luminous blue variables are known to exist among our local group of neighboring galaxies.
Major outbursts such as the one that produced the nebula occur once or twice during a luminous blue variable’s lifetime, reports the Space Telescope Science Institute and Goddard Space Flight Center. A luminous blue variable star was created from one or more giant eruptions about 10,000 years ago. The star’s outer layers were blown into space – “like a boiling teapot popping off its lid.” The expelled material amounts to roughly 10 times our Sun’s mass–a prelude to its self-destruction as a supernova.
A Cosmic Tug of War
In celebration of the 31st anniversary of the launching of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers aimed the renowned observatory at a brilliant monster, one of the brightest stars seen in our galaxy. AG Carinae is surrounded by a glowing halo of gas and dust –about five light-years wide, which equals the distance from here to the nearest star beyond the Sun, Proxima Centauri–illuminating a tug-of-war between gravity and radiation to avoid self-destruction.
These outbursts are the typical life of a rare breed of stars called a luminous blue variable, a brief convulsive phase in the short life of an ultra-bright, glamorous star that lives fast and dies young. These stars are among the most massive and brightest stars known, which live for only a few million years before exploding as even brighter supernovae. AG Carinae itself is a few million years old — undergoing its final death throes — and resides 20,000 light-years away inside our Milky Way galaxy.
“Stranger Than Imagined” –Weird Dynamics of Earth’s Star
Luminous blue variables are the final short-lived phase of some massive stars, lasting for only a few tens of thousands of years, a blink of an eye in cosmic time compared to the 10-billion-year lifetime of our Sun. AG Carinae will soon end its life in a titanic supernova blast, enriching the Milky Way with elements heavier than iron. Supernovae are so luminous they can be seen across billions of light years, releasing as much energy in an instant as our sun will produce over its 10-billion-year lifetime.
Exhibit a Dual Personality–Shines with Brilliance of One Million suns
Luminous blue variables, reports the Goddard Space Flight Center, “exhibit a dual personality: they appear to spend years in quiescent bliss and then they erupt in a petulant outburst.” These behemoths are stars in the extreme, far different from normal stars like our Sun. In fact, AG Carinae is estimated to be up to 70 times more massive than our Sun and shines with the blinding brilliance of one million suns.
“It’s an arm-wrestling contest between radiation pressure from within the star pushing outward and gravity pressing inward. This cosmic match results in the star expanding and contracting. The outward pressure occasionally wins the battle, and the star expands to such an immense size that it blows off its outer layers, like a volcano erupting. But this outburst only happens when the star is on the verge of coming apart. After the star ejects the material, it contracts to its normal size, settles back down, and becomes quiescent for a while.”
Like many other luminous blue variables, AG Carinae remains unstable. It has experienced lesser outbursts that have not been as powerful as the one that created the present nebula. The origin and frequency of the outbursts remain a mystery, and so astronomers are actively researching these powerful precursors to supernovae.
Anatomy of the Ancient Nebula
Although AG Carinae is quiescent now, as a super-hot star it continues pouring out searing radiation and powerful stellar wind (streams of charged particles). This outflow continues shaping the ancient nebula, sculpting intricate structures as outflowing gas slams into the slower-moving outer nebula. The wind is traveling at up to 670,000 miles per hour (one million km/hr), about 10 times faster than the expanding nebula. Over time, the hot wind catches up with the cooler expelled material, plows into it, and pushes it farther away from the star. This “snowplow” effect has cleared a cavity around the star.
The red material is glowing hydrogen gas laced with nitrogen gas. The diffuse red material at upper left pinpoints where the wind has broken through a tenuous region of material and swept it into space.
“Anomaly” –Could a Strange Star Signal a Civilization Billions of Years Beyond Sapiens
The most prominent features, highlighted in blue, are filamentary structures shaped like tadpoles and lopsided bubbles. These structures are dust clumps illuminated by the star’s reflected light. The tadpole-shaped features, most prominent at left and bottom, are denser dust clumps that have been sculpted by the stellar wind. Hubble’s sharp vision reveals these delicate-looking structures in great detail.
Ultraviolet Legacy Library of Young Stars as Essential Standards
The image was taken in visible and ultraviolet light. Ultraviolet light offers a slightly clearer view of the filamentary dust structures that extend all the way down toward the star. Hubble is ideally suited for ultraviolet-light observations because this wavelength range can only be viewed from space.
Massive stars, like AG Carinae, are important to astronomers because of their far-reaching effects on their environment. The largest program in Hubble’s history – the Ultraviolet Legacy Library of Young Stars as Essential Standards – is studying the ultraviolet light of young stars and the way they shape their surroundings.
Maxwell Moe, astrophysicist, NASA Einstein Fellow, University of Arizona via NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Maxwell Moe, astrophysicist, NASA Einstein Fellow, University of Arizona. Max can be found two nights a week probing the mysteries of the Universe at the Kitt Peak National Observatory. Max received his Ph.D in astronomy from Harvard University in 2015.