VFTS 102

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VFTS 102
Artist's impression of the fastest rotating star.jpg
Artistic depiction of VFTS 102
Observation data
Epoch J2000       Equinox J2000
Constellation Dorado
Right ascension 05h 37m 39.248s [1]
Declination −69° 09′ 51.04″ [1]
Apparent magnitude  (V)15.806 [2]
Characteristics
Evolutionary stage Main sequence
Spectral type O9:Vnnne [3]
U−B color index −0.879 [2]
B−V color index +0.293 [2]
Astrometry
Radial velocity (Rv)228 [3]  km/s
Proper motion (μ)RA: 7.3 [1]   mas/yr
Dec.: 2.1 [1]   mas/yr
Distance 164,000  ly
(50,000  pc)
Details [3]
Mass ~ 25  M☉
Luminosity 100,000  L☉
Surface gravity (log g)3.6 ± 0.5  cgs
Temperature 36,000 ± 5000  K
Rotational velocity (v sin i)610±30 [4]  km/s
Other designations
2MASS  J05373924-6909510
Database references
SIMBAD data
The position of VFTS 102 in Tarantula nebula VFTS 102.jpg
The position of VFTS 102 in Tarantula nebula

VFTS 102 is a star located in the Tarantula nebula, a star forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way.

The peculiarity of this star is its projected equatorial velocity of ~610  km/s (about 2,000,000  km/h ), making it the second fastest rotating massive star known alongside VFTS 285 (609 km/s), and preceded only by the WO star WR 142 which has a rotational velocity of 1000  km/s . [4] [5] [6] The resulting centripetal force tends to flatten the star; material can be lost in the loosely bound equatorial regions, allowing for the formation of a disk. The spectroscopic observations seem to confirm this, and the star is classified as Oe, possibly due to emission from such an equatorial disk of gas.

This star was observed by the VLT Flames Tarantula Survey collaboration using the VLT, Very Large Telescope in Chile. One member of this team is Matteo Cantiello, an Italian astrophysicist who emigrated to the United States and is currently working at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at University of California Santa Barbara. In 2007, together with a few collaborators, he predicted the existence of massive stars with properties very similar to VFTS 102. In its theoretical model, the extreme rotational speed is caused by the transfer of material from a companion star in a binary system. After this "cosmic dance", the donor star is predicted to explode as a supernova. The spun-up companion instead is likely to be launched out of the orbit and move away from its stellar neighbors at high speed. Such a star is called a runaway. VFTS 102 fits this theoretical model very well, being found to be a rapidly rotating runaway star and lying close to a pulsar and a supernova remnant. Other scenarios, like a dynamical ejection from the core of the star cluster R136, are also possible. [7]

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Upsilon Aquarii</span> Star in the constellation Aquarius

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">R136</span> Super star cluster in the constellation Dorado, in the Large Magellanic Cloud

R136 is the central concentration of stars in the NGC 2070 star cluster, which lies at the centre of the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud. When originally named it was an unresolved stellar object but is now known to include 72 class O and Wolf–Rayet stars within 5 parsecs of the centre of the cluster. The extreme number and concentration of young massive stars in this part of the LMC qualifies it as a starburst region.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">NGC 2060</span> Star cluster in the constellation Dorado

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">R136b</span> Star in the constellation Dorado

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">R136a1</span> Wolf–Rayet star with one of the highest mass and luminosity of any known star

R136a1 is one of the most massive and luminous stars known, at 196 M☉ and nearly 4.7 million L☉, and is also one of the hottest, at around 46,000 K. It is a Wolf–Rayet star at the center of R136, the central concentration of stars of the large NGC 2070 open cluster in the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud. The cluster can be seen in the far southern celestial hemisphere with binoculars or a small telescope, at magnitude 7.25. R136a1 itself is 100 times fainter than the cluster and can only be resolved using speckle interferometry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Melnick 42</span> Massive blue supergiant star in the constellation Dorado

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">VFTS 682</span> Wolf Rayet star in the constellation Dorado

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">R136a2</span> Star in the constellation Dorado

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">R136c</span> Star in the constellation Dorado

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Melnick 34</span> Binary star in the Large Magellanic cloud

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">WR 102</span> Star in the constellation Sagittarius

WR 102 is a Wolf–Rayet star in the constellation Sagittarius, an extremely rare star on the WO oxygen sequence. It is a luminous and very hot star, highly evolved and close to exploding as a supernova.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">VFTS 352</span> Contact binary star system in the constellation Dorado

VFTS 352 is a contact binary star system 160,000 light-years (49,000 pc) away in the Tarantula Nebula, which is part of the Large Magellanic Cloud. It is the most massive and earliest spectral type overcontact system known.

HD 49798 is a binary star in the constellation Puppis about 650 parsecs from Earth. It has an apparent magnitude of 8.3, making it one of the brightest known O class subdwarf stars.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">R145</span> Binary star in the constellation Dorado

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">VFTS 243</span>

VFTS 243 is an O7V type main sequence star that orbits a stellar mass black hole. The black hole is around nine times the mass of the Sun, with the blue star being 25 times the mass of the Sun making the star 200,000 times larger than the black hole. VFTS 243 is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud inside NGC 2070 around 160,000 light years from Earth. The binary has an orbital period of 10.4 days.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Cutri, Roc M.; Skrutskie, Michael F.; Van Dyk, Schuyler D.; Beichman, Charles A.; Carpenter, John M.; Chester, Thomas; Cambresy, Laurent; Evans, Tracey E.; Fowler, John W.; Gizis, John E.; Howard, Elizabeth V.; Huchra, John P.; Jarrett, Thomas H.; Kopan, Eugene L.; Kirkpatrick, J. Davy; Light, Robert M.; Marsh, Kenneth A.; McCallon, Howard L.; Schneider, Stephen E.; Stiening, Rae; Sykes, Matthew J.; Weinberg, Martin D.; Wheaton, William A.; Wheelock, Sherry L.; Zacarias, N. (2003). "VizieR Online Data Catalog: 2MASS All-Sky Catalog of Point Sources (Cutri+ 2003)". CDS/ADC Collection of Electronic Catalogues. 2246: II/246. Bibcode:2003yCat.2246....0C.
  2. 1 2 3 Bonanos, A. Z.; Massa, D. L.; Sewilo, M.; Lennon, D. J.; Panagia, N.; Smith, L. J.; Meixner, M.; Babler, B. L.; Bracker, S.; Meade, M. R.; Gordon, K. D.; Hora, J. L.; Indebetouw, R.; Whitney, B. A. (2009). "Spitzer SAGE Infrared Photometry of Massive Stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud". The Astronomical Journal. 138 (4): 1003–1021. arXiv: 0905.1328 . Bibcode:2009AJ....138.1003B. doi:10.1088/0004-6256/138/4/1003. S2CID   14056495.
  3. 1 2 3 Dufton, P. L.; Dunstall, P. R.; Evans, C. J.; Brott, I.; Cantiello, M.; De Koter, A.; De Mink, S. E.; Fraser, M.; Hénault-Brunet, V.; Howarth, I. D.; Langer, N.; Lennon, D. J.; Markova, N.; Sana, H.; Taylor, W. D. (2011). "The VLT-FLAMES Tarantula Survey: The Fastest Rotating O-type Star and Shortest Period LMC Pulsar—Remnants of a Supernova Disrupted Binary?". The Astrophysical Journal Letters. 743 (1): L22. arXiv: 1111.0157 . Bibcode:2011ApJ...743L..22D. doi:10.1088/2041-8205/743/1/L22. S2CID   118448435.
  4. 1 2 Shepard, Katherine (January 2020). "HST/COS Spectra of the Wind Lines of VFTS 102 and 285". The Astrophysical Journal. 888 (2): 82. arXiv: 1911.09675 . Bibcode:2020ApJ...888...82S. doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ab5a82. S2CID   208202016.
  5. ↑ Jiang, Dengkai; Han, Zhanwen; Yang, Liheng; Li, Lifang (2013). "The binary merger channel for the progenitor of the fastest rotating O-type star VFTS 102". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 428 (2): 1218. arXiv: 1302.6296 . Bibcode:2013MNRAS.428.1218J. doi:10.1093/mnras/sts105. S2CID   118856665.
  6. ↑ Sander, A.; Hamann, W.-R.; Todt, H. (April 2012). "The Galactic WC stars. Stellar parameters from spectral analyses indicate a new evolutionary sequence". Astronomy and Astrophysics. 540: A144. arXiv: 1201.6354 . Bibcode:2012A&A...540A.144S. doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201117830. ISSN   0004-6361. S2CID   119182468.
  7. ↑ Cantiello, M.; Yoon, S.-C.; Langer, N.; Livio, M. (2007). "Binary star progenitors of long gamma-ray bursts". Astronomy and Astrophysics. 465 (2): L29. arXiv: astro-ph/0702540 . Bibcode:2007A&A...465L..29C. doi:10.1051/0004-6361:20077115. S2CID   118921504.
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