Astronomers May Have Solved, the Mystery Surrounding , Blue Supergiant Stars.
'Newsweek' reports that astronomers now believe
that some of the brightest and hottest stars in existence
may be the result of collisions between two other stars.
Scientists have long sought to determine
how these intensely bright stars,
known as blue supergiants, are formed. .
According to a new paper published by
'The Astrophysical Journal Letters,' scientists
suggest that blue supergiants are the result
of two binary stars merging into one.
Blue supergiants, which are about 16 to 40
times the mass of our sun, are some of
the most massive stars in the universe. .
Their intensely hot surface temperatures
are often two to five times hotter than our
sun and over 10,000 times more luminous.
'Newsweek' reports that the latest research
looked at 59 early B-Type blue supergiant
stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud,
a satellite galaxy of our own Milky Way galaxy. .
We simulated the mergers
of evolved giant stars with
their smaller stellar companions
over a wide range of parameters,
taking into account the interaction
and mixing of the two stars
during the merger, Athira Menon, study author and an astrophysicist at the Instituto
de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) in Spain, via 'Newsweek'.
The newly-born stars
live as blue supergiants
throughout the second
longest phase of a star's life,
when it burns helium in its core, Athira Menon, study author and an astrophysicist at the Instituto
de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) in Spain, via 'Newsweek'.
The results obtained explain
why blue supergiants are found
in the so-called 'evolutionary gap'
from classical stellar physics,
a phase of their evolution where
we would not expect to find stars, Artemio Herrero, study co-author and a researcher at the Instituto
de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) in Spain, via 'Newsweek'.
The team reportedly hopes to continue its
investigation into the role that merging stars
could play in the formation of galaxies, as well as how
blue supergiants form neutron stars or black holes. .
The team reportedly hopes to continue its
investigation into the role that merging stars
could play in the formation of galaxies, as well as how
blue supergiants form neutron stars or black holes.