Out in the universe , many forms of star interaction take place , from collisions to stars being bewilder out of stellar clustering . Now , the Atacama Large Millimeter / submillimeter Array ( ALMA ) has snap an figure of speech of a unlike form of fundamental interaction , and it is really stunning .
The beautiful watching shows the wizard system HD101584 , where a dramatic stellar clash took place . One of the stars in the system became a red behemoth . This is a fate that star like the Sun experience towards the end of their living after they have run out of hydrogen to sting in their nucleus . At that point , they start burning helium and swell up , becoming much large and therefore less dense .
virtuoso can ride out as ruby-red giants for a really recollective sentence , slowly suffer material and eventually leaving behind nothing but their exposed core , which is what we advert to as a white dwarf . But this is not what happened to this red monster . And the fault is in its familiar star . As the red giant star swell , it engulfed its lower - mass fellow traveller . In doing so , it sent the comrade on a spiral towards the large ace ’s core without colliding with it .
As described in item inAstronomy & Astrophysics , this fundamental interaction pushed the red giant into release a major outburst of material . This pushed its verboten layers outward , leave its essence exposed for the researchers to see .
“ The star arrangement HD101584 is particular in the sense that this ‘ last process ’ was terminated prematurely and dramatically as a nearby low-spirited - mass companion star was engulfed by the goliath , ” lead author Hans Olofsson , of the Chalmers University of Technology , said in astatement .
The particular fundamental interaction between the star topology , the discharge of energetic jets of flatulence , and the layer the red behemoth antecedently shed are responsible for the breathtaking composition that was observe by ALMA . But this is about more than just beaut . The observance are give us singular insights into the eventual demise of red giant .
“ Currently , we can describe the death processes common to many Sun - like stars , but we can not explain why or on the nose how they pass , " sum cobalt - source Sofia Ramstedt from Uppsala University . " HD101584 give us authoritative hint to solve this mystifier since it is currently in a unretentive transitional phase between better studied evolutionary stages . With detailed images of the environment of HD101584 we can make the connection between the giant star it was before , and the stellar end it will presently become . ”
