Meet Apep, the rare star system that could explode and kill us all
An exotic stellar peacock 8,000 light years from Earth readies to erupt in an unprecedented explosion
The Wolf-Rayet at the door
A new study from the University of Sydney examines conditions in one of these bizarre stellar systems.
“Wolf–Rayet (WR) stars embody the final stable phase of the most massive stars immediately before their evolution is terminated in a supernova explosion (Carroll & Ostlie 2006). They are responsible for some of the most extreme and energetic phenomena in stellar physics, launching fast and dense stellar winds,” researchers describe in an article published inThe Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Of the few hundred Wolf-Rayetstarsknown to orbit within binary systems, some (with the proper conditions) can expel large quantities of carbon dust, driven by stellar winds. As the stars orbit each other, this tail can twist into a stunning spiral — an effect seen in just a handful of stellar systems.
Wolf-Rayet stars are often 20 times more massive than Earth, and these bodies can be millions of times greater than our own Sun. Energy produced by these stars drives massive quantities of helium, oxygen and carbon into space. It is this material — especially carbon — which form the distinctive spiral as they cool.
