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NEWSNOTES

P Cygni Unmasked
At first glance, P Cygni in the heart of the Northern Cross might look like a run-of-the-mill variable
star. But in reality its not. P Cygni is one of the most
luminous stars known, putting out energy an estimated
700,000 times faster than the Sun. Although currently
shining at 5th magnitude, it brightened to 3rd magnitude around A.D. 1600. A second brightening occurred
in the mid-17th century, after which the star settled
down to its present state, which includes irregular brightness fluctuations of about 0.2 magnitude (20 percent).
Astronomers suspect that P Cygni ejected gaseous
shells during its recent eruptions. A team of researchers

10 arcseconds

Callistos Rarefied Wisps


Data from the Galileo spacecraft have revealed that Callisto, Jupiters
second-largest moon, has a thin atmosphere of carbon dioxide (CO2).
However, the surface pressure is a negligible 7.5 picobars, less than a
hundred-billionth of Earths sea-level pressure. As reported in the February 5th issue of Science, Robert W. Carlson (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) identified CO2 emissions in data acquired by Galileos Near-Infrared
Mapping Spectrometer (NIMS) in September 1997. There had been
prior hints that CO2 ice existed on Callisto, and these new results confirm them. Carlson notes that the gas molecules can be easily lost
by being ionized by solar ultraviolet radiation, then carried away by
Jupiters magnetic field. Thus unless the wisps of CO2 are just a transient phenomenon, they must be constantly replenished by sources on
or under Callistos surface. All four of Jupiters largest moons are now
known to have atmospheres Europa and Ganymede each have thin
envelopes of oxygen, while Io is surrounded by sulfur dioxide.
May 1999 Sky & Telescope

4 arcminutes

1 arcminute

P Cygnis nebulous surroundings. These high-resolution views


were taken with the Manchester Occulting Mask Imager in
the red light of ionized nitrogen. Left: The star appears as a
bright dot through the imagers central occulting mask, which
blocks nearly all its light. Note the bright knots in the inner
shell of ejecta. The prominent rays are diffraction spikes from
the telescope. Middle: P Cygnis faint, outer shell. The bright
feature to the northwest (arrowed) is a ghost image caused
by reflections in the optics. Right: A dim but distinct arc can
be traced extending about 5 arcminutes northeast of P Cygni
in this 8.4-arcminute-wide field. North is up and east to the
left in all images. Courtesy John OConnor and the Nordic
Optical Telescope.

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from England now has a new instrument that has enabled its members to peer deep into the close environs
of P Cygni and image its ejecta with unprecedented
clarity and resolution.
John A. OConnor, John Meaburn, and Myfanwy
Bryce (University of Manchester) tested the newly designed Manchester Occulting Mask Imager (MOMI) on
the star with the 2.6-meter Nordic Optical Telescope at
La Palma in the Canary Islands in November 1997. The
instrument works like a coronagraph, but instead of
using an entirely opaque disk to produce artificial
eclipses, MOMI has a tiny, 4-arcsecond-wide occulting

mask that transmits a small amount of starlight for


alignment purposes. MOMIs images clearly show P
Cygnis two previously known expanding shells of circumstellar gas a bright inner one about 20 arcseconds in diameter and a fainter, outer shell approximately 1.5 arcminutes wide. But OConnor and his team also
discovered a roughly 5-arcminute-long arc of faint nebulosity projecting northeastward from the outer shells
northern edge. Their findings appeared in the October
21st Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
OConnor and his coinvestigators report that the arc
appears to be associated with P Cygni and not simply
foreground or background nebulosity. Given the stars
estimated distance of 6,000 light-years, the arc must be
at least 8 light-years long. Such a size suggests that it is
older than the inner and outer shells, which are estimated to be 880 and 2,100 years old, respectively.
Very deep images also show a trace of a complementary southern arc that extends directly eastward
from P Cygni. The two arcs could then be edges of a
monopolar lobe projecting from P Cygni, wrote the
team, though more follow-up observations are needed
to confirm the presence of this southern arc and to
search for an expected but as yet unseen western counterpart.
P Cygni is famous for its spectral lines, which exhibit
the prototypical P Cygni profile each broad emission line is bordered by a narrow, blueshifted absorption line, characteristic of a star losing mass in the
form of stellar wind. Luminous blue variables such as
P Cygni are believed to represent a short-lived (about
100,000-year) phase in the life of every massive star.

1999 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

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