An international team of astronomers has observed a giant star ‘VVV-WIT-08’ lurking near the heart of the Milky Way. Located at almost 25,000 light years, it is believed that the star belongs to a new kind of binary system of “giant blinking”.
In this STAR system, the star is 100 times larger than the Sun and eclipsed once every few decades by an orbital companion even though.
The observations of the telescope have revealed that this giant stalking star is attenuated by 97%, that is, decreasing in brightness in a factor of 30 and then slowly returned to its previous shine.
The author, Dr. Sergey Koposov, from the University of Edinburgh, said: “It is amazing that we have just observed a dark, large and elongated pass between us and the star far, and we can only speculate what its origin is.”
The star is located in a dense region of the Milky Way. Therefore, the star probably would have a large number of dark bodies that floated around it.
VIVV-WIT-08 variables were found by the Visa Via Via Variables (VVV), a project that uses the British view telescope in Chile and operated by the European South Observatory. The attenuation of the star was also observed by the optical gravitational lens experiment (OGLE), a long-term observation campaign directed by the University of Warsaw.
The first flashing astronomers have not been discovered. Astronomers have previously discovered, a giant star called Epsilon Aurigae, eclipsed by a huge dust album every 27 years, but only attenuates at around 50%. Another giant star called TYC 2505-672-1 has the current record for the EclipSing binary star system with the longest-69 year orbital period, a record for which VVV-WIT-08 is currently a contender.
The project’s co-leader’s project, Philip Lucas, from the University of Hertfordshire, said: “Occasionally we find variable stars that do not fit into any established category, which we call” What is this? “, Or the objects” with ingenuity “, we do not know how these blinking giants arrived, it’s exciting to see VVV’s discoveries after many years planning and collecting the data”.
The discovery was directed by Dr. Leigh Smith of the Astronomy Institute of Cambridge, working with scientists from the University of Edinburgh, the University of Hertfordshire, the University of Warsaw at Poland, and Andrés Bello University in Chile.
Smith said: “Here it seems to be about half a dozen potential, it is known star systems of this type, which contain giant stars and large opaque albums. Certainly, they are more than found, but the challenge is now finding out what They are the hidden companions and how they came to be surrounded by albums, despite orbiting until the time of the giant star. In doing so, we could learn something new about how these types of systems evolve. “
The study is published on monthly announcements of the Royal Astronomical Society.