Aluminum Oxide Dust Speeds Up Star Winds (1 of 3) (IMAGE)

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

Aluminum Oxide Dust Speeds Up Star Winds (1 of 3)

Caption

High spatial resolution images of AlO and 29SiO molecules around W Hya observed with ALMA. AlO molecules were only observed within three stellar radii (Rstar) whereas 29SiO was distributed in the accelerated wind beyond 5 Rstar without significant depletion.This strongly suggests that condensed aluminum oxide dust plays a key role in accelerating the stellar wind and in preventing the efficient formation of silicate dust around W Hydrae.. This material relates to a paper that appeared in the 01 November 2017, issue of Science Advances, published by AAAS. The paper, by A. Takigawa at Kyoto University in Kyoto, Japan, and colleagues was titled, "Dust formation and wind acceleration around the aluminum oxide-rich AGB star W Hydrae."

Credit

[Credit: Aki Takigawa]

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