Stars : V838 Monocerotis

V838 Monocerotis : Light Echo From V838 Mon

In January 2002, a dull star in an obscure constellation called V838 Monocerotis (V838 Mon) suddenly became 600,000 times more luminous than our Sun, temporarily making it the brightest star in our Milky Way galaxy.

The mysterious star has long since faded back to obscurity, but observations by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope of a phenomenon called a "light echo" have uncovered remarkable new features. These details promise to provide astronomers with a CAT-scan-like probe of the three-dimensional structure of shells of dust surrounding an aging star.

The outburst of V838 Mon was somewhat similar to that of a nova, a more common stellar outburst. A typical nova is a normal star that dumps hydrogen onto a compact white-dwarf companion star. The hydrogen piles up until it spontaneously explodes by nuclear fusion -- like a titanic hydrogen bomb. This exposes a searing stellar core, which has a temperature of hundreds of thousands of degrees Fahrenheit.

By contrast, however, V838 Mon did not expel its outer layers. Instead, it grew enormously in size, with its surface temperature dropping to temperatures not much hotter than a light bulb. This behavior of ballooning to an immense size, but not losing its outer layers, is very unusual and completely unlike an ordinary nova explosion.

Image : NASA ESA and H.E. Bond (STScl)





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29 Mar 2024 : 18.205.59.250 : V838 Monocerotis : Light Echo From V838 Mon