&imwidth=800&imheight=600&format=webp&quality=medium "Unexplainable 'ghost' activity in Cassiopeia finally has an answer 160 years later")
Scientists have solved a mystery that has haunted them for 160 years. Gamma Cassiopeiae is one of the five stars that make up the W-shaped Cassiopeia constellation. In 1866, Italian astronomer Angelo Secchi noticed something odd about this star - a strange hydrogen signature. There were points where the star’s hydrogen emissions were dark, when they should have been bright. It was highly unusual, and Secchi had never come across anything like this in the 4,000-odd stars that he had studied in his lifetime. So he came up with an entirely new stellar classification, the Be star, where B stood for the temperature and e for its hydrogen emission lines. Be stars are described as "a hot blue-white star with peculiar emission lines caused by a fast-spinning, ejected disk of matter."
Two theories were proposed for strange X-rays from the star
In 1976, astronomers discovered the star was pumping out incredibly intense, fluctuating X-ray emissions that were roughly 40 times brighter than typical stars of its size, and were being fueled by plasma heated to over 100 million degrees. Since then, two theories have been proposed for these extreme X-rays: magnetic activity and a hidden companion. The first proposed that localised magnetic reconnection/clashes could be occurring between the surface of the fast-spinning Be star and its surrounding disk of ejected gas. The second one stated that a small, unseen companion star is pulling material from Gamma Cas's disk, heating that matter to extreme temperatures as it falls.
Study reveals which of the two is the culprit
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A new study published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics has identified the reason for this behaviour. Using JAXA’s X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM) space telescope, scientists now know that the curious X-ray emissions are linked to the orbital motion of a companion white dwarf. University of Liège’s Yaël Nazé, lead author of the study, said in a statement released by the European Space Agency (ESA), "We think the key is in understanding how exactly the interactions take place between the two stars." Scientists believe this could be a common arrangement among low-mass stars. However, data suggest that it is actually much rarer and only seen in high-mass Be stars.
"Now that we know the true nature of gamma-Cas, we can create models specifically for this class of stellar systems, and update our understanding of binary evolution accordingly," Nazé added.
