Supergiant star with a thick dust disc
Wednesday, January 26, 2011 - 11:00
in Astronomy & Space
How is it possible that HD 62623, a hot super-giant star on the verge of death, is surrounded by a disc, generally only associated with infant stars? Using long-baseline stellar interferometry at ESO's VLT interferometer, a team led by Florentin Millour from Observatoire de la Cote d'Azur and Anthony Meilland from Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy could generate for the first time a three-dimensional high angular and high spectral resolution image of this star and its closest environment. They conclude that a solar-mass companion star is the key to this mystery. To attain their goal, the researchers adapted an imaging technique from radio astronomy which uses interferometric datasets.