Mu Cephei

Mu Cephei


Location of μ Cep (circled)

Observation data
Epoch J2000.0      Equinox J2000.0
Constellation Cepheus
Right ascension 21h 43m 30.4609s[1]
Declination +58° 46′ 48.166″[1]
Apparent magnitude (V) +4.08[2] (3.43 - 5.1[3])
Characteristics
Spectral type M2e Ia[4]
U−B color index +2.42[2]
B−V color index +2.35[2]
Variable type SRc[3]
Astrometry
Radial velocity (Rv)+20.63[5] km/s
Proper motion (μ) RA: +5.24[1] mas/yr
Dec.: −2.88[1] mas/yr
Parallax (π)0.55 ± 0.2 [1] mas
Distanceapprox. 6,000 ly
(approx. 1,800 pc)
Absolute magnitude (MV)−7.63[6]
Details
Mass19.2 ± 0.1[7] M☉
Radius1,260[8] R☉
Luminosity283,000[8] L☉
Surface gravity (log g)−0.63[8] cgs
Temperature3,750[8] K
Age10.0 ± 0.1[7] Myr
Other designations
Erakis, Herschel's Garnet Star, μ Cep, HD 206936, HR 8316, BD+58°2316, HIP 107259, SAO 33693
Database references
SIMBADdata

Coordinates: 21h 43m 30.46s, +58° 46′ 48.2″ Mu Cephei (μ Cep, μ Cephei), also known as Herschel's Garnet Star, is a red supergiant star in the constellation Cepheus. It appears garnet red and is located at the edge of the IC 1396 nebula. Since 1943, the spectrum of this star has served as the M2 Ia standard by which other stars are classified.[9]

Mu Cephei is visually nearly 100,000 times brighter than the Sun, with an absolute visible magnitude of Mv = −7.6. Summing radiation at all wavelengths gives a luminosity of around 280,000 L☉ (bolometric magnitude −8.8[8]), making it one of the most luminous red supergiants in the Milky Way. It is also one of the largest stars known at 1,260 R☉.

History

The deep red color of Mu Cephei was noted by William Herschel, who described it as "a very fine deep garnet colour, such as the periodical star ο Ceti".[10] It is thus commonly known as Herschel's "Garnet Star".[11] Mu Cephei was called Garnet sidus by Giuseppe Piazzi in his catalogue.[12] An alternative name, Erakis, used in Antonín Bečvář's star catalogue, is probably due to confusion with Mu Draconis, which was previously called al-Rāqis [arˈraːqis] in Arabic.[13]

In 1848, English astronomer John Russell Hind discovered that Mu Cephei was variable. This variability was quickly confirmed by German astronomer Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander. Almost continual records of the star's variability have been maintained since 1881.[14]

Variability

Mu Cephei is a variable star and the prototype of the obsolete class of the Mu Cephei variables. It is now considered to be a semiregular variable of type SRc. Its apparent brightness varies erratically between magnitude 3.4 and 5.1. Many different periods have been reported, but they are consistently near to either 860 days or 4,400 days.[15]

Properties

Relative sizes of the planets in the Solar System and several well-known stars, including Mu Cephei.
1. Mercury < Mars < Venus < Earth
2. Earth < Neptune < Uranus < Saturn < Jupiter
3. Jupiter < Wolf 359 < Sun < Sirius
4. Sirius < Pollux < Arcturus < Aldebaran
5. Aldebaran < Rigel < Antares < Betelgeuse
6. Betelgeuse < Mu Cephei < VV Cephei A < VY Canis Majoris.

A very luminous red supergiant, Mu Cephei is likely to be the largest star visible to the naked eye, and one of the largest known. It is best seen from the northern hemisphere from August to January.

This is a runaway star with a peculiar velocity of 80.7 ± 17.7 km/s.[7] The distance to Mu Cephei is not very well known. The Hipparcos satellite was used to measure a parallax of 0.55 ± 0.20 milliarcseconds, which corresponds to an estimated distance of 1,333–2,857 parsecs. However, this value is close to the margin of error. A determination of the distance based upon a size comparison with Betelgeuse gives an estimate of 390 ± 140 parsecs,[16] so it is clear that Mu Cephei is either a much larger star than Betelgeuse or much closer (and smaller and less luminous) than expected.

The star is approximately 1,300 times larger than our Sun's solar radius, and were it placed in the Sun's position, its radius would reach between the orbit of Jupiter and Saturn. Mu Cephei could fit over a billion Suns into its volume.

The photosphere of Mu Cephei has an estimated temperature of 3,750 K. It may be surrounded by a shell extending out to a distance at least equal to 0.33 times the star's radius with a temperature of 2,055 ± 25 K. This outer shell appears to contain molecular gases such as CO, H2O, and SiO.[16]

Emissions from the star suggest the presence of a wide ring of dust and water with outer radius four times that of the star (i.e., 2,600 R☉_ and inner boundary twice the radius of the star (1,300 R☉).[17] Placed in the position of our Sun, its disk would span between 6 astronomical units (within Jupiter's orbital zone) and 12 astronomical units (beyond Saturn's orbit).

The star is surrounded by a spherical shell of ejected material that extends outward to an angular distance of 6″ with an expansion velocity of 10 km s−1. This indicates an age of about 2,000–3,000 years for the shell. Closer to the star, this material shows a pronounced asymmetry, which may be shaped as a torus. The star currently has a mass loss rate of a few times 10−7 M☉ per year.[18]

Supernova

Mu Cephei is nearing death. It has begun to fuse helium into carbon, whereas a main sequence star fuses hydrogen into helium. When a supergiant star has converted elements in its core to iron, the core collapses to produce a supernova and the star is destroyed, leaving behind a vast gaseous cloud and a small, dense remnant. For a star as massive as Mu Cephei the remnant is likely to be a black hole. The most massive red supergiants will evolve back to blue supergiants or Wolf-Rayet stars before their cores collapse, and Mu Cephei appears to be massive enough for this to happen. A post-red supergiant will produce a type IIn or type II-b supernova, while a Wolf Rayet star will produce a type Ib or Ic supernova.[19]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Perryman, M. A. C.; et al. (April 1997). "The HIPPARCOS Catalogue". Astronomy and Astrophysics 323: L49–L52. Bibcode:1997A&A...323L..49P.
  2. 1 2 3 Nicolet, B. (October 1978). "Catalogue of homogeneous data in the UBV photoelectric photometric system". Astronomy & Astrophysics Supplement Series 34: 1–49. Bibcode:1978A&AS...34....1N.
  3. 1 2 Samus, N. N.; Durlevich, O. V.; et al. (2009). "VizieR Online Data Catalog: General Catalogue of Variable Stars (Samus+ 2007-2013)". VizieR On-line Data Catalog: B/gcvs. Originally published in: 2009yCat....102025S 1. Bibcode:2009yCat....102025S.
  4. ↑ Shenavrin, V. I.; Taranova, O. G.; Nadzhip, A. E. (2011). "Search for and study of hot circumstellar dust envelopes". Astronomy Reports 55: 31. Bibcode:2011ARep...55...31S. doi:10.1134/S1063772911010070.
  5. ↑ Famaey, B.; et al. (January 2005). "Local kinematics of K and M giants from CORAVEL/Hipparcos/Tycho-2 data. Revisiting the concept of superclusters". Astronomy and Astrophysics 430 (1): 165–186. arXiv:astro-ph/0409579. Bibcode:2005A&A...430..165F. doi:10.1051/0004-6361:20041272.
  6. ↑ Table 4 in Emily M. Levesque, Philip Massey, K. A. G. Olsen, Bertrand Plez, Eric Josselin, Andre Maeder, and Georges Meynet (August 2005). "The Effective Temperature Scale of Galactic Red Supergiants: Cool, but Not As Cool As We Thought". The Astrophysical Journal 628 (2): 973–985. arXiv:astro-ph/0504337. Bibcode:2005ApJ...628..973L. doi:10.1086/430901.
  7. 1 2 3 Tetzlaff, N.; Neuhäuser, R.; Hohle, M. M. (January 2011), "A catalogue of young runaway Hipparcos stars within 3 kpc from the Sun", Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 410 (1): 190–200, arXiv:1007.4883, Bibcode:2011MNRAS.410..190T, doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2010.17434.x.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 Josselin, E.; Plez, B. (2007). "Atmospheric dynamics and the mass loss process in red supergiant stars". Astronomy and Astrophysics 469 (2): 671–680. arXiv:0705.0266. Bibcode:2007A&A...469..671J. doi:10.1051/0004-6361:20066353.
  9. ↑ Garrison, R. F. (December 1993), "Anchor Points for the MK System of Spectral Classification", Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society 25: 1319, Bibcode:1993AAS...183.1710G
  10. ↑ Herschel, W. (1783). Stars newly come to be visible. Philosophical Transactions (the Royal Astronomical Society of London). p. 257.
  11. ↑ Allen, R. H. (1899). Star-Names and Their Meanings. G. E. Stechert. p. 158.
  12. ↑ Piazzi, G., eds. (1814). Praecipuarum Stellarum Inerrantium Positiones Mediae Ineunte Saeculo XIX: ex Observationibus Habitis in Specula Panormitana ab anno 1792 ad annum 1813. Palermo. p. 159.
  13. ↑ Laffitte, R., (2005). Héritages arabes: Des noms arabes pour les étoiles (2éme revue et corrigée ed.). Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geunthner / Les Cahiers de l'Orient. p. 156, note 267.
  14. ↑ Brelstaff, T.; Lloyd, C.; Markham, T.; McAdam, D. (June 1997). "The periods of MU Cephei". Journal of the British Astronomical Association 107 (3): 135–140. Bibcode:1997JBAA..107..135B.
  15. ↑ Kiss, L. L.; Szabó, G. M.; Bedding, T. R. (2006). "Variability in red supergiant stars: Pulsations, long secondary periods and convection noise". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 372 (4): 1721. arXiv:astro-ph/0608438. Bibcode:2006MNRAS.372.1721K. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2006.10973.x.
  16. 1 2 Perrin, G.; et al. (2005). "Study of molecular layers in the atmosphere of the supergiant star µ Cep by interferometry in the K band". Astronomy & Astrophysics 436 (1): 317–324. arXiv:astro-ph/0502415. Bibcode:2005A&A...436..317P. doi:10.1051/0004-6361:20042313.
  17. ↑ Tsuji, Takashi (2000). "Water in Emission in the Infrared Space Observatory Spectrum of the Early M Supergiant Star μ Cephei". The Astrophysical Journal Letters 540 (2): 99–102. arXiv:astro-ph/0008058. Bibcode:2000ApJ...540L..99T. doi:10.1086/312879.
  18. ↑ de Wit, W. J.; et al. (September 2008). "A Red Supergiant Nebula at 25 μm: Arcsecond-Scale Mass-Loss Asymmetries of μ Cephei". The Astrophysical Journal 685 (1): L75–L78. arXiv:0808.1341. Bibcode:2008ApJ...685L..75D. doi:10.1086/592384.
  19. ↑ Meynet, G.; Chomienne, V.; Ekström, S.; Georgy, C.; Granada, A.; Groh, J.; Maeder, A.; Eggenberger, P.; Levesque, E.; Massey, P. (2015). "Impact of mass-loss on the evolution and pre-supernova properties of red supergiants". Astronomy & Astrophysics 575: A60. arXiv:1410.8721. Bibcode:2015A&A...575A..60M. doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201424671.

External links

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