V Hydrae (V Hya), a fading star, has thrown six "smoke rings" that scientists have never seen before.
The researchers anticipate the new discoveries will provide fresh insight into the final moments of red giants before they become white dwarfs or collapse into star-forming nebulae. They described their report, "The Rapidly Evolving Agb Star, V Hya: Alma Finds a Multi-Ring Circus With High-Velocity Outflows," in The Astrophysical Journal.
V Hya is a red giant star around 1,300 light-years from Earth that is nearing the end of its life cycle and will shortly become a white dwarf.
V Hya, on the other hand, isn't discharging its energy in waves like other red giants seen throughout history. According to a news statement from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, it has instead blown out many "smoke rings."
The rings were given the acronym DUDE, which stood for "Disk Undergoing Dynamical Expansion."
The carbon-rich star V Hydrae is in its final act, and so far, its death has proved magnificent and violent. Scientists studying the star have discovered six outflowing rings (shown here in composite), and other structures created by the explosive mass ejection of matter into space.
Researchers Find V Hydrae DUDE Smoking Mysterious Rings
Astronomers look for stars in the final violent stages of their lives to learn more about how energy is carried out of a dying star as it transforms into a white dwarf.
They can better understand the life cycle of stars throughout the universe by monitoring this uncommon event, which led to life flourishing on our planet.
In a news release, Mark Morris, co-author of the study, said: "The end state of stellar evolution-when stars undergo the transition from being red giants to ending up as white dwarf stellar remnants-is a complex process that is not well understood."
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The revelation that this process may entail the simultaneous ejection of gas rings and the formation of high-speed, intermittent jets of material adds a new and exciting twist to researchers' investigation into how stars die.
They also noticed enormous hourglass-shaped gas formations being flung out of the star at speeds of up to 537,000 miles per hour. Astronomers will continue to study V Hya to obtain a better grasp of how stars die.
About V Hydrae
V Hydrae, which discharges plasma into space every eight years, has piqued the interest of scientists.
Aside from that, the star emits stellar material every few hundred years, which forms rings around the star.
Researchers said this is the first and only time a sequence of expanding smoke rings' has been detected around a dying star that blasts every few hundred years.
Wionews said researchers captured this dying star in the midst of losing its atmosphere - and so most of its mass - as is typical of late-stage red giant stars.
But, much to researchers' amazement, they discovered that the matter is being evacuated in a series of rings in this scenario.
The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and the Hubble Space Telescope were used by the researchers.
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