Astronomers unravel the mystery of the ‘Dragon’s Egg’ nebula
- April 15, 2024
- Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
- Category: DPN Topics
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Astronomers unravel the mystery of the ‘Dragon’s Egg’ nebula
Subject: Science and tech
Section: Space sector
Context:
- Two large stars residing inside a spectacular cloud of gas and dust nicknamed the “Dragon’s Egg” nebula have presented a puzzle to astronomers.
More on news:
- One of the stars has a magnetic field, as does our sun.
- Its companion does not.
- Such massive stars are not usually associated with nebulae.
What has the new research found?
- Researchers now appear to have resolved this mystery while also explaining how the relatively few massive stars that are magnetic got that way.
- The bigger star apparently gobbled up a smaller sibling star, and the mixing of their stellar material during this hostile takeover created a magnetic field.
- This merger was likely very violent.
- When two stars merge, material can be thrown out, and this likely created the nebula we see today.
- Computer simulations previously had predicted that the blending of stellar material during such a merger could create a magnetic field in the combined star born in this process.
- These two stars – gravitationally bound to each other in what is called a binary system – are located in our Milky Way galaxy about 3,700 light-years from Earth in the constellation Norma.
- A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km).
- The magnetic star is about 30 times more massive than the sun.
- Its remaining companion is about 26.5 times more massive than the sun.
- They orbit at a distance from each other varying from seven to 60 times the distance between Earth and the sun.
What is Egg Nebula?
- The Dragon’s Egg is so named because it is located relatively near a larger nebula complex called the Fighting Dragons of Ara.
- The stars inside the Dragon’s Egg appear to have started out 4-6 million years ago as a triple system – three stars born at the same time and gravitationally bound.
- The triple system’s two innermost members included a larger star – perhaps 25 to 30 times the mass of the sun – and a smaller one – maybe five to 10 times the sun’s mass.
Many sun-sized stars generate magnetic fields:
- For low-mass stars like our sun, convective heating – like the movement of hot water in a radiator in your home – creates a movement of stellar material.
- This in turn creates a dynamo effect which induces a magnetic field.
- However, for massive stars – greater than eight times the mass of our sun – different heating effects are in play, and so explaining the presence of magnetic fields for these types of stars is more tricky.