Astronomers have been able to visualize a rare type of stellar binary where one of the objects is approaching
“The Milky Way knows only about 300variables RV Taurus, - the researchers note. "We focused our research on the second brightest, U Monocerotis, which is currently the first system to detect X-rays."
An article describing the results of the researchers appeared in The Astrophysical Journal.
The U Mon system is at a distance of about 3600light-years from the constellation Unicorn. The two stars revolve around each other about every six and a half years in an orbit that is tilted from our point of view by about 75 degrees.
The primary star, a yellow supergiant, has a massabout twice the mass of the Sun. Due to the constant changes in pressure and temperature in its atmosphere, the object expands and contracts, and these pulsations create predictable changes in brightness with alternating deep and shallow dips into the light.
The cool disk around both stars consists ofgas and dust emitted by the primordial star as it evolves. Binary orbits in the central slit, which, according to scientists, are comparable to the distance between two stars at their maximum separation when they are at a distance of about 870 million km.
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