Theme Research programme It stars RW Cephei. In the latest research article, scientists point out that observations, detailed images of the star and analyzes conducted by artificial intelligence algorithms indicate that a huge amount of gas exploded on the surface of the star, which over time obscured part of the star’s disk from our view. This caused the decrease in brightness that astronomers observed.
The star RW Cephei itself is a so-called supercool giant, that is, a massive star that has swelled to enormous sizes in the final phase of its life. It's hard to imagine the massive size of this star, but let's try. The diameter of the Sun is 1.4 million kilometers. This means that an airliner flying above the surface of the Sun (if that were possible) would need a full Earth year to orbit the star. The Earth is 150 million kilometers away from the Sun, or just over a hundred solar diameters. If we look further, we find that Jupiter is on average 770 million kilometers from the Sun. So how big is RW Cephei? Everything indicates that if the center of this star were placed at the center of the sun, its surface would be…behind the orbit of Jupiter. All the terrestrial planets, the asteroid belt, and Jupiter will be located inside this star. So we are talking about an object with a diameter of at least 1.5 billion kilometers instead of 1.4 million kilometers.
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The star's massive size means that the rapid decline in brightness over the past few years must have been caused by an equally impressive process. Scientists point out that the star's brightness decreased by more than 30 percent over three years.
To study the star, scientists used an array of six telescopes of the Center for High-Resolution Angular Astronomy (CHARA) on Mt. Wilson in California, allowing us to get a closer look at the star.
Observations have shown that the star is not as round as expected. This information made it necessary to use algorithms to recreate the actual shape of the star. The analysis showed that we are not only dealing with a wild star, but rather with a star that is convulsed by the movements of the masses inside it. As a result of these spasms, dark and light spots form on the surface of the star.
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Additional observations of R.W. Cephei conducted at the Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico determined that the brightness was significantly reduced in the optical range compared to the infrared range. This, in turn, suggests that the star's light was simply blocked by dust clouds floating between Earth and the star itself.
All the above information indicates that a massive explosion of gas occurred on the surface of the star. As the gas cloud moved away from the star, it cooled and formed a dust cloud that blocked some of the light emanating from the star. As the cloud moves away, it diminishes, gradually allowing more and more light through, and astronomers on Earth can observe the star's brightness returning to its original values.
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