A research team recently found beta Crucis A to be roughly 14.5 times as gigantic as the Sun and approximately 11 million years old, making it the heaviest star identified.
A Sci-News.com report described Beta Crusis A as a triple star system situated at a 280-light-year distance from the Earth.
Also called HD 111123, HIC 62434, Becrux and Mimosa, the system is the second-brightest object in the Crux's constellation and the 20th brightest star in the night sky.
A beta Cephei variable star is the primary star in the system with rapid brightness changes. Beta Crucis B, is a primary sequence star with a stellar class of B2.
'Asteroseismology' Combined with 'Polarimetry'
More so, the third companion is a pre-min, low-mass sequence star. To crack the mass and age of Beta Crucis A, Dr. Daniel Cotton, from the Australian National University and Monterey Institute for Research in Astronomy, together with his colleagues combined asteroseismology with the measurement of the light waves' orientation identified as "polarimetry."
In their paper published in Nature Astronomy, the study authors explained depends on seismic waves that bounce around the interior of a star and generate measurable changes in its light.
"Probing the interiors of heavy stars," the researchers also explained, that will explode later as supernovae have been conventionally difficult.
The study investigators analyzed in their research, data from the WIRE and TESS satellites of NASA, high-resolution spectroscopic data from ESO, as well as polarimetric data from Siding Spring Observatory and Western Sydney University's Penrith Observatory.
The Desire to Examine an Old Notion
According to Dr. Cotton, they wanted to examine an old notion. Specifically, it was foretold in the late 1970s that polarimetry had the probability to gauge the interiors of gigantic stars, although it has not been plausible until to date.
Astronomer at the University of New South Wales Professor Jeremy Bailey added that the size of the effect is relatively small.
Meanwhile, an astronomer at Florida Gulf Coast University, Professor Derek Buzasi said, they needed the best precision of the polarimeter of the world they designed and constructed.
"Examining the three types of long-term data together," continued the professor, enabled them to determine the dominant mode geometry of Mimosa.
This, the professor said, opened the road to the weighing, as well as age-dating of the star through the use of seismic approaches.
A 'Heroic' Initiative Worth Admiring
According to astronomer with the Institute of Astronomy at KU Leuven, the Max Planck Institute of Astronomy, and University Nijmegen, Professor Conny Aerts, the polarimetric study of Mimosa, as detailed in Star Facts, is opening a new opportunity for "asteroseismology of bright massive stars."
He also said that while the stars are the Galaxy's most productive chemical factories, they are far the least examined asteroseismically, given the level of difficulty of such research. This heroic initiative of the Australian polarimetrists, he continued, is to be admired.
Related report about polarimetry is shown on Dr. Cormac Quigley's YouTube video below:
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