Hubble Space Telescope celebrated its 31st anniversary earlier this year. To commemorate the occasion, the space telescope released an image of the unstable star AG Carinae. Now, Hubble researchers have revisited the star to show it from two different perspectives, compiled using data from 2020, 2014, and 1994.
The first view of the star shows the ionized hydrogen and nitrogen which it emits, and a shell is formed around the core of the star. This shell expands over time, throwing off gases. The second view shows how dust is distributed around the star, it is shown in blue color.
The star appears dramatic
The dust shines as it reflects the light given off by the star, and it is shaped by stellar winds which are coming from the star as well. The star’s dramatic appearance is because it’s very huge and moving towards the end of its life. As it gets old and uses all of its fuel, the star will become more unstable and throw off both dust and gases.
“AG Carinae is formally classified as a Luminous Blue Variable because it is a hot (emitting blue light), brilliant star that varies in brightness,” the Hubble scientists explain.
Hubble peeking through the cosmos
“Such stars are quite rare because few are so massive. Luminous Blue Variable stars continuously lose mass in the final stages of life. The star is waging a tug-of-war between gravity and radiation pressure to avoid self-destruction. As the star begins to run out of fuel, its radiation pressure decreases, and gravity begins to take hold. Stellar material succumbs to gravity and falls inward. It heats up and is explosively ejected into the surrounding interstellar space. This process continues until enough mass is lost and the star reaches a stable state.”
The speed of gases thrown off by the star is at 43 miles per second, and its mesmerizing shell is formed from older ejections. The shell of material that forms the nebula is around 10,000 years old and is approximately spread 5 light-years. Hubble Space Telescope has been capturing the universe in great detail for three decades and has unraveled several mysteries of the cosmos.
