Symbiotic R Aquarii
Explanation:
You can see it change in brightness with just binoculars over the course of a year.
Variable star R Aquarii
is actually an interacting binary star system,
two stars that seem to have a
close,
symbiotic relationship.
About 710 light years away,
this intriguing system consists of a cool
red giant star and hot, dense
white dwarf star in mutual orbit around their common
center of mass.
The binary system's visible light is dominated by the red giant,
itself a
Mira-type long period
variable star.
But material in the cool giant star's extended envelope is pulled by gravity
onto the surface of the smaller, denser white dwarf,
eventually triggering a
thermonuclear explosion and blasting material into space.
The
featured image from the
Hubble Space Telescope shows the still-expanding
ring of debris which spans less than a
light year and originated from a
blast that would have been seen in the early 1770s.
The
evolution of less understood energetic events producing
high energy emission in the
R Aquarii
system has been monitored since 2000 using
Chandra X-ray Observatory data.
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
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NASA Official: Jay Norris.
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A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.