{"id":14850,"date":"2024-01-31T00:47:26","date_gmt":"2024-01-31T00:47:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/01\/31\/astronomers-discover-strange-new-type-of-star-hidden-in-the-center-of-our-galaxy\/"},"modified":"2024-01-31T00:47:26","modified_gmt":"2024-01-31T00:47:26","slug":"astronomers-discover-strange-new-type-of-star-hidden-in-the-center-of-our-galaxy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/01\/31\/astronomers-discover-strange-new-type-of-star-hidden-in-the-center-of-our-galaxy\/","title":{"rendered":"Astronomers discover strange new type of star hidden in the center of our galaxy"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A decade-long survey of the night sky has revealed a mysterious new type of star astronomers are referring to as an \u201cold smoker.\u201d <\/p>\n

These previously hidden stellar objects are aging, giant stars located near the heart of the Milky Way galaxy. The stars are inactive for decades and fade until they\u2019re almost invisible before belching out clouds of smoke and dust, and astronomers think they could play a role in distributing elements across the universe. <\/p>\n

Four studies detailing the observations published January 25 in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. <\/p>\n

Astronomers observed the old smoker stars for the first time during the survey that involved monitoring nearly a billion stars in infrared light, which is invisible to the human eye. <\/p>\n

The observations were carried out with the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope, situated at a vantage point high in the Chilean Andes at the Cerro Paranal Observatory. <\/p>\n

The search for newborn stars<\/h3>\n

The team\u2019s initial goal was searching for newborn stars, which are hard to detect in visible light because they are obscured by dust and gas in the Milky Way. But infrared light can pierce through the galaxy\u2019s high concentrations of dust to pick out otherwise hidden or faint objects. <\/p>\n

While two-thirds of the stars were easy to classify, the remainder were more difficult, so the team used the European Southern Observatory\u2019s Very Large Telescope to study individual stars, said Philip Lucas, professor of astrophysics at the University of Hertfordshire. Lucas was the lead author of one study and a coauthor on the other three. <\/p>\n

As astronomers monitored hundreds of millions of stars, they tracked 222 that experienced noticeable shifts in brightness. The team determined that 32 of them were newborn stars that increase in brightness by at least 40 times, and some as much as 300 times. A large percentage of the eruptions are ongoing, so astronomers can continue monitoring how the stars evolve over time. <\/p>\n

\u201cOur main aim was to find rarely-seen newborn stars, also called protostars, while they are undergoing a great outburst that can last for months, years, or even decades,\u201d said Dr. Zhen Guo, Fondecyt Postdoc Fellow at the University of Valparaiso in Chile, in a statement. Guo was the lead author of two studies, and coauthor on the other two. <\/p>\n

\u201cThese outbursts happen in the slowly spinning disc of matter that is forming a new solar system. They help the newborn star in the middle to grow, but make it harder for planets to form. We don\u2019t yet understand why the discs become unstable like this,\u201d Guo said. <\/p>\n

An unexpected stellar discovery<\/h3>\n

During their observations of stars near the galactic center, the team identified 21 red stars that experienced unusual changes in luminosity that puzzled astronomers. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe weren\u2019t sure if these stars were protostars starting an eruption, or recovering from a dip in brightness caused by a disc or shell of dust in front of the star \u2014 or if they were older giant stars throwing off matter in the late stages of their life,\u201d Lucas said. <\/p>\n

The team focused on seven of the stars and compared the new data they collected with data from previous surveys to determine that the stellar objects were a new type of red giant stars. <\/p>\n

Red giants form when stars have exhausted their supply of hydrogen for nuclear fusion and begin to die. In about 5 or 6 billion years, our sun will become a red giant, puffing up and expanding as it releases layers of material and likely evaporating the solar system\u2019s inner planets, although Earth\u2019s fate remains unclear, according to NASA. <\/p>\n

But the stars spotted during the survey are different. <\/p>\n

\u201cThese elderly stars sit quietly for years or decades and then puff out clouds of smoke in a totally unexpected way,\u201d said Dante Minniti, a professor in the department of physics at Andr\u00e9s Bello University in Chile and coauthor on three of the studies, in a statement. \u201cThey look very dim and red for several years, to the point that sometimes we can\u2019t see them at all.\u201d <\/p>\n

The stars were largely found in the innermost nuclear disc of the Milky Way, where stars are more concentrated in heavy elements. Understanding how the old smokers release elements into space could change the way astronomers think about the way such elements are distributed across the universe. <\/p>\n

Astronomers are still trying to understand the process behind the stars\u2019 release of dense smoke, and what occurs after. <\/p>\n

\u201cMatter ejected from old stars plays a key role in the life cycle of the elements, helping to form the next generation of stars and planets,\u201d Lucas said. \u201cThis was thought to occur mainly in a well-studied type of star called a Mira variable. However, the discovery of a new type of star that throws off matter could have wider significance for the spread of heavy elements in the Nuclear Disc and metal-rich regions of other galaxies.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

This post appeared first on cnn.com<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A decade-long survey of the night sky has revealed a mysterious new type of star astronomers are referring to as an \u201cold smoker.\u201d These previously hidden stellar objects are aging, giant stars located near the heart of the Milky Way galaxy. The stars are inactive for decades and fade until they\u2019re almost invisible before belching <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":14851,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-14850","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14850\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}