Scientists are studying the WR 104 system. It consists of a Wolf-Rayet star and another companion that is also massive and hot. It is thought to have the potential to cause problems for life on Earth in the future. New research reveals that these fears may be in vain, but there will be plenty of mysterious things about this pair of luminaries.
Pinwheel Star
Scientists at the W. M. Keck Observatory have published a study on the WR 104 binary system. Its main component is the Wolf-Rayet star, an incredibly hot and massive luminary. The flow of particles from its surface is so strong that it tears off the upper layers and they fly off into space, forming a nebula.
However, the interesting thing about the WR 104 system, discovered in 1999, is that it is binary. And the second component is also hot and massive. It belongs to the OB class and generates a super-powerful stellar wind. Rotating together, these two luminaries produce something similar to a child’s spinning toy.
Scientists have long established that the things we see from Earth as a fiery wheel are really carbon particles that are born where two streams of stellar wind collide. And the arrangement of this nebula led scientists to believe that we see the system literally from above, meaning the orbits are perpendicular to our direction of vision.
Are we in danger of a gamma-ray burst
The fact that WR 104 is located perpendicular to our angle of view means that it is most likely that the rotation axes of the stars are pointing exactly at us. And that raises some concerns. The fact is that both luminaries that make up the system are quite massive and should end their lives with supernova explosions.
And scientists fear that the explosion of the first one will touch the second one and cause a gamma-ray burst. It’s a radiation flux phenomenon, a beam of radiation that hits thousands of light-years away. And it’s bursting out of the poles of a dying star. In other words, in this case, it would be aimed directly at us and would probably be a threat to life on Earth.
And now there’s a new study. It relies on data from three scientific instruments at the Keck Observatory: the Low Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (LRIS), the Echellette Spectrograph and Imager (ESI), and the Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSPEC). And the result really surprised the scientists.
It indicates that the plane of the orbit is not perpendicular to our ray of vision. It is inclined to this position at an angle of 30-40°. This means that the poles of sight are not pointed precisely at us, which means that the gamma-ray burst will not “fry” the Earth.
But now another problem has arisen. The nebula in WR 104 is still perpendicular to us. And the orbit of the stars is not. No one can say how it can be that there is such a large angle between them. Now we will have to look for an explanation for this fact.
According to phys.org
