The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has
observed the variable star RS Puppis over a period of five weeks,
showing the star growing brighter and dimmer as it pulsates. These
pulsations have created a stunning example of a phenomenon known as a
light echo, where light appears to reverberate through the murky
environment around the star.
Image
credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team
(STScI/AURA)-Hubble/Europe Collaboration. Acknowledgment: H. Bond (STScI
and Penn State University)
Copyright: ESA/Hubble & ESO
For most of its life, a star is pretty stable, slowly consuming the fuel at its core to keep it shining brightly.
However, once most of the hydrogen that stars use as fuel has been
consumed, some stars evolve into very different beasts – pulsating
stars. They become unstable, expanding and shrinking over a number of
days or weeks and growing brighter and dimmer as they do so.
A new and spectacular Hubble image shows RS Puppis, a type of variable star known as a Cepheid variable [1].
As variable stars go, Cepheids have comparatively long periods. RS
Puppis, for example, varies in brightness by almost a factor of five
every 40 or so days.
RS Puppis is unusual as it is shrouded by a nebula – thick, dark clouds
of gas and dust. Hubble observed this star and its murky environment
over a period of five weeks in 2010, capturing snapshots at different
stages in its cycle and enabling scientists to create a time-lapse video
of this ethereal object (heic1323a).
The apparent motion shown in these Hubble observations is an example of a phenomenon known as a light echo [2].
The dusty environment around RS Puppis enables this effect to be shown
with stunning clarity. As the star expands and brightens, we see some of
the light after it is reflected from progressively more distant shells
of dust and gas surrounding the star, creating the illusion of gas
moving outwards. This reflected light has further to travel, and so
arrives at the Earth after light that travels straight from star to
telescope [3]. This is analogous to sound bouncing off surrounding objects, causing the listener to hear an audible echo.
While this effect is certainly striking in itself, there is another
important scientific reason to observe Cepheids like RS Puppis. The
period of their pulsations is known to be directly connected to their
intrinsic brightness, a property that allows astronomers to use them as
cosmic distance markers. A few years ago, astronomers used the light
echo around RS Puppis to measure its distance from us, obtaining the
most accurate measurement of a Cepheid's distance (eso0805). Studying stars like RS Puppis helps us to measure and understand the vast scale of the Universe.
[1] RS Puppis is over ten times more massive than our
Sun, and around 15 000 times more luminous. It lies around 6500
light-years away from us.
[2] This light echo enabled astronomers to measure the distance to RS Puppis very accurately back in 2008. This measurement is the most accurate ever calculated for a Cepheid.
[3] This effect can make it appear that this
propagation of light is happening at speeds greater than the speed of
light, but this is just an illusion.
Notes for editors
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA.
Contacts
Nicky GuttridgeHubble/ESA
Garching bei München, Germany
Tel: +49-89-3200-6855
Email: nguttrid@partner.eso.org
Source: ESA/HUBBLE - Space Telescope
