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Hubble Chronicles Mysterious Outburst with 'Eye-Popping' Pictures
Space.com ^ | March 26, 2003 | Robert Roy Britt

Posted on 03/27/2003 5:51:09 AM PST by Sabertooth


Hubble Chronicles Mysterious Outburst with 'Eye-Popping' Pictures
By Robert Roy Britt
Senior Science Writer
posted: 02:00 pm ET
26 March 2003

An eruptive star that brightened to 600,000 times its initial intensity and briefly outshone all others in the Milky Way Galaxy has astronomers amazed and puzzled over what happened.

The star's light bounces off surrounding dust clouds, creating a spectacular "light echo" in a series of new images from the Hubble Space Telescope. The echo is seen to grow over time as the light races out to fresh layers of material, presumed to have been cast into space long ago by one or more eruptions of the star. The light bounces off that dust and is reflected toward Earth.

   Images

ANIMATION: Four images of V838 Mon. The different colors in the nebula reflect changes in the color of the star during its outburst. CREDIT: NASA, ESA and H.E. Bond (STScI)

DETAIL: A still shot of V838 Mon taken on Oct. 28, 2002.

NASA graphic explaining how a light echo works. CREDIT: NASA & A. Felid (STSCi)
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That is not the strange part.

The star, named V838 Monocerotis, has suddenly grown so big that if placed in the center of our solar system it would engulf Jupiter.

Oddly, it isn't hot and eruptive in the manner of a supernova or nova, both of which toss off outer layers in explosive fits. Instead, V838 Mon, as astronomers call it, achieved remarkable brilliance while swelling to gargantuan size and remaining cool at its surface.

"A supernova would have been much brighter than V838 Mon, so that is ruled out," said Howard Bond, a Space Telescope Science Institute researcher who led the observations. "V838 Mon was roughly as bright as an ordinary nova, but its behavior was very different."

When a nova ejects its outer layers, a hot core is exposed, Bond explained. V838 Mon did not explosively eject its outer envelope, so it remained cool throughout the event, which was observed from April to December 2002.

"In fact, at present it is one of the coolest stars known," Bond told SPACE.com.

The surface of V838 Mon is about 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit (2,000 degrees Celsius), less than half that at the surface of the Sun. The observations will be detailed in the March 27 issue of the journal Nature.

'Eye-popping'

The pictures were publicly released today, but astronomers have been cooing over them for nearly three months.

"These are eye-popping images," said Karen Kwitter, a Williams College astronomer who was not involved in the study. "I couldn't believe it at first. Astronomers are not used to seeing stars change on such a short time scale."

Scientists don't know how long ago or how often the star might have erupted, apparently filling the space around it with dust. This material is thought to be racing away from the star, but not near as fast as the fresh burst of light that illuminates the dust and continually overtakes new regions of it to create the expanding light echo.

The visible structure around V838 Mon grows from 4 to 7 light-years during the sequence. Bond said if the dust is expanding at 223,700 mph (100 kilometers per second), then some of it was hurled into space about 20,000 years ago.

"We are still working out the detailed structure of the dust, which will take more observations as the echoes continue to evolve," he said. "So we're not yet sure whether there are multiple shells that indicate multiple outbursts."

The star has now been observed with ground-based observatories, too, but researchers still don't know what sort of celestial animal they are dealing with. They suspect the star might have flung a relatively small portion of its outer shell into space, then expanded and cooled.

"We don't understand the outburst or its cause, Sumner Starrfield, an Arizona State University astronomer, said in a January interview at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society, where the images were previewed.

"This object got bigger and brighter and cooler, but we don't know why," Starrfield said today. "Right now we know the effects and we're trying to use the effects to determine the cause."

Second star

Starrfield and colleague R. Mark Wagner of the University of Arizona, looking at V838 Mon from the ground, did learn that it has a smaller, hotter companion. Because the smaller star is of a common type, the researchers were able to use its brightness to estimate a distance to the pair, which they put at 20,000 light-years or more.

That means the currently observed outburst actually took place 20,000 years ago, and the light from the developing echo is just now arriving here. Because of the great distance, the light diminished to the point that the star was visible from Earth only with binoculars or telescopes.

The light echo is expected to continue growing for another decade or so, Earth time, so further study is planned.

"This research will likely have significant impact on our understanding of the late phases of stellar evolution," said Phil Ianna of the National Science Foundation, which helped fund the research.

Kwitter, the Williams College astronomer, agreed with the scientists who studied V838 Mon and determined only that it is a strange beast.

"To create an outburst as sudden and as luminous as V838 Mon's, you have to do something pretty significant to the star," Kwitter said. "Right now we have no idea what. There are some interesting theories involving binary companion interactions or planet swallowing that may turn out to be relevant, but the truth is that nobody knows yet why this happened."

Kwitter said the light echo, one of only a few that have ever been examined, may be a relatively common phenomenon that just has not been spotted very often because it doesn't last long.

"It's like a flower that blooms for 1 second," she suggested. "What are the odds that you're looking right at it the moment it opens? If you had blinked or glanced at it 5 seconds earlier or later, you'd have missed it."



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To: Under the Radar
Umm, the Protestant Reformation is underappreciated in how it changed the scientific worldview of Europe.
21 posted on 03/27/2003 7:07:51 AM PST by fishtank (Pete has no cat's feet. He has no mule ears. He has no seal tail.)
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To: Sabertooth
This makes me think again about the monoliths in 2010 Odyssey II:

...zillions of monoliths swarm across Jupiter, consuming it and turning it into a second sun; while a repeated message is beamed to Earth, reading: "All These Worlds Are Yours Except Europa. Attempt No Landing There. Use Them Together. Use Them in Peace." The war on Earth ends.

22 posted on 03/27/2003 7:14:14 AM PST by fivecatsandadog (fur, cryin' out loud...)
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To: Sabertooth
Cool stuff! Thanks for posting.

Check out this image, from today's Sydney Morning Herald, and quite a bit closer to home:

Spaced out ... auroras over Canada with the Manicouagan Crater in the foreground are
seen in this image, released by NASA's Earth Sciences and Image Analysis
Laboratory. The crater is one of the oldest impact craters known, formed during a
tremendous impact about 200 million years ago. Photo: AFP

23 posted on 03/27/2003 7:20:11 AM PST by dead
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To: fishtank
Fishtank, I make no claim to be an expert in this area. However, the Dark Ages run from around 566 to 1095, and the Reformation occured after 1500. Therefore there doesn't seem to be any contradiction between the Arabic contributions and the Protestant Reformation. What am I missing here?
24 posted on 03/27/2003 7:20:19 AM PST by Under the Radar
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To: fivecatsandadog
The war on Earth ends.

Followed immediately afterward, I'm sure, by a race between the U.S., Red China, and Russia, to invade Europa and make that cool alien technology our own.

Can't keep those pesky humans down...

25 posted on 03/27/2003 7:20:36 AM PST by tictoc
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To: Sabertooth
Hummm!
"This just in! Looks like God is making donuts. Homer will be so happy!"
26 posted on 03/27/2003 7:20:37 AM PST by sonofatpatcher2 (Love & a .45-- What more could you want, campers? };^)
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To: Under the Radar
I cna go with the phrase "Arab contributions", but the Islamic mindset is contrary to scientific investigation. Islam destroyed the Christian East (the Byzantines) - the tragedy of the centuries. The Eastern Christians could have really provided a better future for the world if Islam had not suppressed them so much.
27 posted on 03/27/2003 7:23:48 AM PST by fishtank (Pete has no cat's feet. He has no mule ears. He has no seal tail.)
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To: bedolido
What great accomplishment has any Arab country ever achieved?

From around 800 to 1500 AD, they were the most advanced civilization on Earth. They fostered and promoted world trade, they built great cosmopolitan cities, they advanced science and mathematics, they produced great art, architecture and literature, and they preserved for us much of what little remains of the literatures of Greece and Rome.

They are one evolutionary step above animals... maybe not even that high.

This I agree with. Of course, all of humanity shares the same evolutionary rung and the same genetic heritage, and we are in fact animals.

28 posted on 03/27/2003 7:32:52 AM PST by Physicist
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To: fishtank
the Islamic mindset is contrary to scientific investigation.

It may be now, but that wasn't always true. Astronomy and mathematics in particular were advanced dramatically by the Muslims. At the time, Christendom was particularly hostile to science.

Islam destroyed the Christian East (the Byzantines) - the tragedy of the centuries.

Many historians attribute the Renaissance itself to the fall of Constantinople. The dispersal of Byzantine scholars to the cities of Europe revived European interest in classical learning.

29 posted on 03/27/2003 7:40:15 AM PST by Physicist
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To: fishtank
Fair 'nuff. :-)
30 posted on 03/27/2003 8:08:52 AM PST by Under the Radar
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To: Sabertooth
Gorgeous!
Thanks, Sabe. I wonder what it would look like through my 10" dob?
31 posted on 03/27/2003 8:28:59 AM PST by Ignatz (Scribe of the Unwritten Law)
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To: Sabertooth
Thanks for the heads up!
32 posted on 03/27/2003 9:37:58 AM PST by Alamo-Girl
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To: Sabertooth
Was Hubble and American or a Brit.? And where are the arab
telescopes and recent feats of science and engineering?
i enjoy your posts,thanks.
33 posted on 03/27/2003 11:46:34 AM PST by Helms ("The French and Germans Believe W. Civilisation is Caput")
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To: Helms
Hubble, Edwin Powell (1889–1953), American astronomer, and foremost cosmologist of his day.
34 posted on 03/27/2003 11:58:10 AM PST by RightWhale (Theorems link concepts: Proofs establish links)
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To: RightWhale
Hubble, Edwin Powell (1889–1953), American astronomer, and foremost cosmologist of his day.

Though he affected a British accent for most of his career!

35 posted on 03/27/2003 1:46:30 PM PST by longshadow
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To: Sabertooth
Gorgeous.
36 posted on 03/27/2003 1:47:52 PM PST by k2blader (If one good thing can be said about the UN, it is that it taught me how to spell “irrelevant.”)
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To: Sabertooth
You mean we don't know everything about the universe? I know some FReepers who ain't gonna alike this...
37 posted on 03/27/2003 1:48:33 PM PST by ez (Brevity is the soul of wit.)
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To: longshadow
a British accent

Did he? Perhaps the result of bonding with his chums abroad. At the time America was not at all the world leader in science and technology, which makes his accomplishments even more remarkable. Hubble is on the short list of geniuses.

38 posted on 03/27/2003 1:52:18 PM PST by RightWhale (Theorems link concepts: Proofs establish links)
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To: RightWhale
Did he? Perhaps the result of bonding with his chums abroad. At the time America was not at all the world leader in science and technology, which makes his accomplishments even more remarkable. Hubble is on the short list of geniuses.

I'll not dispute that.

I'm not sure what his reasons were for affecting a "British" persona, including faux Brit accent, tweed jackets, etc. Perhaps it was an eccentricity; in any case, it has no bearing on his scientific achievements, which were enormous.

39 posted on 03/27/2003 2:10:26 PM PST by longshadow
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To: Sabertooth
Wow. That was a really big star way back when...
40 posted on 03/27/2003 2:19:54 PM PST by Captain Beyond (The Hammer of the gods! (Just a cool line from a Led Zep song))
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