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What Happens When the Winds of Giant Stars Collide?
XMM-Newton observation of the core of the very massive cluster Cyg OB2 located in the constellation of Cygnus, 4700 light-years from Earth. Credit: ESA/G. Rauw
Two massive stars racing in orbit around each other have had their colliding stellar winds X-rayed for the first time, thanks to the combined efforts of ESA’s XMM-Newton and NASA’s Swift space telescopes. Stellar winds, pushed away from a massive star’s surface by its intense light, can have a profound influence on their environment. In some locations, they may trigger the collapse of surrounding clouds of gas and dust to form new stars. In others, they may blast the clouds away before they have the chance to get started.
Now, XMM-Newton and Swift have found a ‘Rosetta stone’ for such winds in a binary system known as Cyg OB2 #9, located in the Cygnus star-forming region, where the winds from two massive stars orbiting around each other collide at high speeds.
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Read the rest of What Happens When the Winds of Giant Stars Collide? (401 words)
© nancy for Universe Today, 2012. | Permalink | No comment |
Post tags: Swift Telescope, XMM-Newton
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2012-10-12 21:22:45
Source: http://www.universetoday.com/97948/what-happens-when-the-winds-of-giant-stars-collide/
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