Astronomers snap the sharpest picture ever taken of such a star

Sep 28, 2011 21:01 GMT  ·  By
This picture of the nebula around a rare yellow hypergiant star called IRAS 17163-3907 is the best ever taken of a star in this class
   This picture of the nebula around a rare yellow hypergiant star called IRAS 17163-3907 is the best ever taken of a star in this class

Using the Very Large Telescope (VLT) instrument the European Southern Observatory (ESO) operates at La Silla, Chile, astronomers were recently able to collect the most detailed image ever snapped of a yellow hypergiant star, one of the rarest breeds of stars in the Universe.

A number of interesting aspects stem from this study, including the fact that the stellar object itself appears to be surrounded by a double shell of dust. One of them lies farther out into the surrounding space, whereas the other is located closer to the star's actual surface.

Though this image may appear less detailed than the photos we've come to expect of the VLT, keep in mind that this is not a massive cosmic structure such as a star-forming nebula, but rather an individual star surrounded by dust cocoons.

Astronomers named this object the Fired Egg Nebula because its surroundings resemble egg white, whereas its yellowish core resembles the yolk. The scientific designation for the yellow hypergiant is IRAS 17163-3907.

The star has a diameter about 1,000 times larger than the Sun's, and is located an estimated 13,000 light-years away, which is not that far by astronomical standards. Measurements indicate that its light shines 500,000 times brighter than our parent star's.

Details of the new research appear in a paper entitled “A double detached shell around a post-Red Supergiant: IRAS 17163-3907, the Fried Egg nebula,” which has already been accepted for publication in an upcoming issue of the esteemed journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

“This object was known to glow brightly in the infrared but, surprisingly, nobody had identified it as a yellow hypergiant before,” ESO astronomers and study team leader Eric Lagadec says of the star.

The latest image of the yellow hypergiant was collected using the VISIR (VLT spectrometer and imager for the mid-infrared) camera on the ESO installation. The team explains that the star is so large that it would swallow all planets up to Jupiter.

The second gas giant from the Sun would orbit just on the surface of the massive stars, whereas all other bodies beyond its orbit would be located in the nebula surrounding IRAS 17163-3907.

“The much larger surrounding nebula would engulf all the planets and dwarf planets and even some of the comets that orbit far beyond the orbit of Neptune. The outer shell has a radius of 10 000 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun,” an ESO press release concludes.