MAXICO: Situated 7,500 light years from Earth, the binary star system recognized as Eta Carinae has been puzzling astronomers since its bright eruption in the 1840s.
Now, a supercomputer, space telescopes, and a 3-D printer are providing insight into this mysterious system, in which two massive stars orbiting each other are blowing themselves apart. Because Eta Carinae is surrounded by a dusty nebula, it is difficult to observe. Astronomers have used space telescopes such as the NASA Swift satellite over the past 18 years to measure X-ray emissions by the stars when they come close to each other.
Most recently, a team of researchers used the Pleiades supercomputer at NASA Ames Research Center to simulate the stars’ closest approach.
The computer model showed a spiraling pattern occurring as a result of their close approach. This data was then sent to a 3D printer, which produced a detailed model more specific than anything even space telescopes could observe.
The unstable system is made up of one star approximately 30 times the mass of our Sun and a second, bigger star about 90 times the mass of the Sun. The two orbit one another every 5.5 years.
At closest approach, the lower-mass star slingshots around its companion, with each star spawning stellar winds between one and six million miles per hour (1.6 and 9.6 million km per hour). These winds produce high energy X-rays as they hit each other and heat up surrounding gas.
In August 2014, Eta Carinae generated the brightest X-rays ever recorded.
Bright orange in color, the 3-D printout shows spine-shaped lumps protruding from the spiral that resulted from the stars’ close approach to one another.
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center astrophysicist Thomas Madura acknowledged such features have never been seen prior to now.
“We think these are real physical features that arise due to physical instabilities,” he said.
Results of the study were presented this week at the winter meeting of the American Astronomical Society.
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