An unusual type of star may be showing us something about the origin of our own Solar System. Wolf-Rayet stars display unusual spectra, prominent in which are heavy elements as well as broad emission lines of ionized helium, nitrogen and carbon. These are massive objects 40 to 50 times the size of our Sun, with surface temperatures ranging up to 200,000 K. Have a look at one of these, showing another Wolf-Rayet trait, the strong stellar winds ejecting material into nearby space. A bubble with a dense shell forms around such stars, trapping gas and dust that could form into new stars.
Image: Here we see the spectacular cosmic pairing of the star Hen 2-427 — more commonly known as WR 124 — and the nebula M1-67 which surrounds it. Both objects, captured here by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, are found in the constellation of Sagittarius and lie 15,000 light-years away. The star Hen 2-427 shines brightly at the very centre of this explosive image and around the hot clumps of gas that are ejected into space at over 150,000 kilometres per hour. Hen 2-427 is a Wolf-Rayet star, named after the astronomers Charles Wolf and Georges Rayet. Wolf-Rayet are super-hot stars characterized by a fierce ejection of mass. The nebula M1-67 is estimated to be no more than 10,000 years old — just a baby in astronomical terms — but what a beautiful and magnificent sight it makes. A version of this image was released in 1998, but has now been re-reduced with the latest software. Credit: ESA/Hubble.
Vikram Dwarkadas (University of Chicago) and colleagues believe that Wolf-Rayet stars can unlock the mystery of how our Solar System emerged. The researchers are hoping to update the older view that our system formed in the vicinity of a relatively conventional supernova, noting peculiarities in the proportion of two isotopes in the early Solar System. One of these is aluminium-26, which turns up in relatively high proportion in our system compared with the rest of the galaxy.
The other issue is with iron-60, which earlier work by Nicolas Dauphas, a co-author on the current paper, suggests is found in smaller amounts than we would expect. We couple this with the interesting fact that Wolf-Rayet stars release a good deal of aluminium-26, but are not associated with iron-60. Add into the mix the giant stars’ ability to shed mass through intense stellar winds. We wind up with a bubble structure with a dense shell, a potential star-making factory. Dwarkadas and team estimate that 1 to 16% of Sun-like stars could form in this way.
Image: This simulation shows how bubbles form over the course of 4.7 million years from the intense stellar winds off a massive star. UChicago scientists postulated how our own Solar System could have formed in the dense shell of such a bubble. Credit: V. Dwarkadas & D. Rosenberg.
It’s an interesting explanation because we would expect both isotopes to be produced in the kind of supernova long held to have provided materials for the infant Solar System. Given the proportions we actually find in meteorites from the early system, the question becomes why one isotope is found in the days of system formation while the other was not. Says Dwarkadas:
“The idea is that aluminum-26 flung from the Wolf-Rayet star is carried outwards on grains of dust formed around the star. These grains have enough momentum to punch through one side of the shell, where they are mostly destroyed—trapping the aluminum inside the shell.”
Over time, the shell begins to collapse inward due to gravity, forming our Solar System. The original Wolf-Rayet star is long gone, doubtless through a supernova explosion or, the authors note, through direct collapse into a black hole. The latter would produce little iron-60, while the former could have trapped any iron-60 formed in the supernova within the bubble walls.
Image: Slices of a simulation showing how bubbles around a massive star evolve over the course of millions of years (moving clockwise from top left). Credit: V. Dwarkadas & D. Rosenberg.
The paper is Dwarkadas et al., “Triggered Star Formation inside the Shell of a Wolf-Rayet Bubble as the Origin of the Solar System,” Astrophysical Journal Vol. 851, No. 2 (22 December 2017). Abstract available. The earlier paper on iron-60 is Tang & Dauphas, “Low 60FE Abundance in Semarkona and Sahara 99555,” Astrophysical Journal Vol. 802, No. 1 (17 March 2015). Abstract available.
There is something counter intuitive about this theory which makes me think that it might not be the origin of our solar system. We don’t need a Wolf Rayet star or bubble to produce Iron 60, or aluminum 26, or isotopes of xenon since any supernova can do that. I think that a bubble might want to hang around near the black hole or neutron star which we don’t see and would be bad for a proto star and proto planetary accretion disk which needs a larger area or volume and distance from the star to collapse to form a large system like our own. Anything being expelled at high velocity from a star can’t form a proto planetary accretion disk or gas bubble that can collapse.
I mean any core collapsing super nova can form Iron 60, aluminum 26, and isotopes of xenon.
Does the presence of life on a planet influence its spin?
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2017/12/29/as-world-turns-life-could-speed-up-planets-spin.html
The idea that a supernova seeded our solar system with heavy elements and helped begin the gravitational collapse is supported by chemical evidence. The only thing that I disagree with here is the idea that our solar system came from only one Wolf Rayet star bubble which would have to expand a large amount to make our solar system. It would have to then make an accretion disk of gas which might hard to do or be less efficient than the large dust clouds we see telescopically in stellar nurseries or gaseous or diffuse nebula which are much larger than the diameter of the star and bubble. The bubble might undergo a gravitational collapse before it got to big.
Scientists Claim They Discovered World’s Earliest Representation of a Supernova
Indian scientists discovered a 5,000-year-old stone carvings they claim depicts an ancient supernova.
Claire Voon
January 12, 2018
https://hyperallergic.com/421198/scientists-claim-they-discovered-worlds-earliest-representation-of-a-supernova/
This is the Surface of a Giant Star, 350 Times Larger Than the Sun
Article written: 24 Jan , 2018
Updated: 24 Jan 2018
by Matt Williams
https://www.universetoday.com/138349/surface-giant-star-350-times-larger-sun/
To quote:
For example, astronomers have learned much from our Sun about how convection plays a major role in the life of stars. Until now, they have not been able to conduct detailed studies of the surfaces of other stars because of their distances and obscuring factors. However, in a historic first, an international team of scientists recently created the first detailed images of the surface of a red giant star located roughly 530 light-years away.
The study recently appeared in the scientific journal Nature under the title “Large Granulation cells on the surface of the giant star ?¹ Gruis“. The study was led by Claudia Paladini of the Université libre de Bruxelles and included members from the European Southern Observatory, the Université de Nice Sophia-Antipolis, Georgia State University, the Université Grenoble Alpes, Uppsala University, the University of Vienna, and the University of Exeter.
For the sake of their study, the team used the Precision Integrated-Optics Near-infrared Imaging ExpeRiment (PIONIER) instrument on the ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) to observe the star known as ?¹ Gruis. Located 530 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Grus (The Crane), ?1 Gruis is a cool red giant. While it is the same mass as our Sun, it is 350 times larger and several thousand times as bright.