A red giant sheds its skin

Eso_potw1807a_1024

eso_potw1807a February 9th, 2018

Credit: ESO/M. Wittkowski (ESO)

This ghostly image features a distant and pulsating red giant star known as R Sculptoris. Situated 1200 light-years away in the constellation of Sculptor, R Sculptoris is something known as a carbon-rich asymptotic giant branch (AGB) star, meaning that it is nearing the end of its life. At this stage, low- and intermediate-mass stars cool off, create extended atmospheres, and lose a lot of their mass — they are on their way to becoming spectacular planetary nebulae. While the basics of this mass-loss process are understood, astronomers are still investigating how it begins near the surface of the star. The amount of mass lost by a star actually has huge implications for its stellar evolution, altering its future, and leading to different types of planetary nebulae. As AGB stars end their lives as planetary nebulae, they produce a vast range of elements — including 50% of elements heavier than iron — which are then released into the Universe and used to make new stars, planets, moons, and eventually the building blocks of life. One particularly intriguing feature of R Sculptoris is its dominant bright spot, which looks to be two or three times brighter than the other regions. The astronomers that captured this wonderful image, using ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI), have concluded that R Sculptoris is surrounded by giant “clumps” of stellar dust that are peeling away from the shedding star. This bright spot is, in fact, a region around the star with little to no dust, allowing us to look deeper into the stellar surface. This image captures an extremely small section of the sky: approximately 20x20 milliarcseconds. For comparison, Jupiter has an angular size of approximately 40 arcseconds. Links Research paper

Provider: European Southern Observatory

Image Source: https://www.eso.org/public/images/potw1807a/

Curator: European Southern Observatory, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
R Sculptoris
Subject - Milky Way
Star > Evolutionary Stage > Red Giant
Eso_potw1807a_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 1h 26m 58.1s
DEC = -32° 32’ 35.4”
Orientation
North is up
Field of View
0.0 x 0.0 arcminutes
Constellation
Sculptor

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Red VLTI (PIONIER) Infrared (H) 1.7 µm
Spectrum_base
Red
Eso_potw1807a_1280
×
ID
potw1807a
Subject Category
B.3.1.4  
Subject Name
R Sculptoris
Credits
ESO/M. Wittkowski (ESO)
Release Date
2018-02-09T12:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://www.eso.org/public/images/potw1807a/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Facility
Very Large Telescope Interferometer
Instrument
PIONIER
Color Assignment
Red
Band
Infrared
Bandpass
H
Central Wavelength
1680
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
21.742051068, -32.5431758287
Reference Dimension
1594.0, 1592.0
Reference Pixel
797.0, 796.0
Scale
-4.85139749763e-08, 4.85139749763e-08
Rotation
-0
Coordinate System Projection:
TAN
Quality
Full
FITS Header
Notes
Creator (Curator)
European Southern Observatory
URL
http://www.eso.org
Name
Email
Telephone
Address
Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2
City
Garching bei München
State/Province
Postal Code
D-85748
Country
Germany
Rights
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Publisher
European Southern Observatory
Publisher ID
eso
Resource ID
potw1807a
Metadata Date
2018-02-08T13:54:54+01:00
Metadata Version
1.1
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Detailed color mapping information coming soon...

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There is no distance meta data in this image.

 

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