AB Aurigae contains 2.7 times the mass of our Sun, and it’s one of the largest stars in the Taurus-Auriga star-forming cloud. It’s classified as a Herbig star, named after the astronomer who first discovered them. When the region was viewed in the X-ray spectrum, AB Aurgae stood out like a sore thumb.
But what could be releasing so many X-rays? Some astronomers suggested a companion star, but the temperature of the gas producing the X-rays was too low to be a newborn star.
The data from XMM-Newton showed that the X-rays are actually coming from a region just above the star. It appears that material cast off by the star by its two hemispheres are being collided together by its magnetic field. It’s where the solar wind is colliding that the X-rays are being generated.
Original Source: ESA News Release
The gravitational wave background was first detected in 2016. It was announced following the release…
The giant outer planets haven’t always been in their current position. Uranus and Neptune for…
The hunt for extrasolar planets has revealed some truly interesting candidates, not the least of…
How did complex life emerge and evolve on the Earth and what does this mean…
In a world that seems to be switching focus from the Hubble Space Telescope to…
The world was much different in 1990 when NASA astronauts removed the Hubble Space Telescope…