Mothra (star)
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Mothra, or EMO J041608.838-240358.60, is a binary system with a possible transient, in the constellation of Eridanus. Mothra is in the galaxy cluster MACS J0416.1-2403, nicknamed the "Christmas Tree Galaxy Cluster".[1]
Distance and Galaxy
[edit]Mothra is one of the most distant known stars, it is 5.4 gigaparsecs (17.6 billion light years). They had to magnify to a factor of 4,000 to find EMO J041608.838-240358.60. EMO stands for extremely magnified object. LS1 is the host galaxy of the EMO J041608.838-240358.60 system, a dwarf galaxy or globular cluster with a mass of 10,000-1,000,000 solar masses.[2]
Physical properties
[edit]Mothra consists of two supergiant stars, a yellow supergiant and a blue supergiant. Mothra A is a yellow supergiant or yellow hypergiant, it has a size of 271 solar radii, based on a luminosity of 50,000 solar luminosities and a temperature of 5,250 kelvin. Mothra A has an initial mass of 15 solar masses. Mothra B is the blue supergiant. It has an size of 95.5 solar radii based on a luminosity of 125,000 solar luminosities and a temperature of 14,000 kelvin. The orbital characteristics of the binary system is currently unknown. Mothra A had a possible transient event, for 120-230 days it swelled up to 300 solar radii, and cooled down to 4,000 kelvin.[2][3]
References
[edit]- Starr, Michelle (August 3, 2023). "Meet Giant Mothra: Extremely Rare 'Kaiju' Monster Star Discovered". ScienceAlert.
- "NASA's Webb, Hubble Combine to Create Most Colorful View of Universe". NASA. November 9, 2023.
- "JWST's PEARLS: Mothra, a new kaiju star at z = 2.091 extremely magnified by MACS0416, and implications for dark matter models" (PDF).
- Diego, Jose M.; Sun, Bangzheng; Yan, Haojing; Furtak, Lukas J.; Zackrisson, Erik; Dai, Liang; Kelly, Patrick; Nonino, Mario; Adams, Nathan; Meena, Ashish K.; Willner, Steven P.; Zitrin, Adi; Cohen, Seth H.; D'Silva, Jordan C. J.; Jansen, Rolf A.; Summers, Jake; Windhorst, Rogier A.; Coe, Dan; Conselice, Christopher J.; Driver, Simon P.; Frye, Brenda; Grogin, Norman A.; Koekemoer, Anton M.; Marshall, Madeline A.; Pirzkal, Nor; Robotham, Aaron; Rutkowski, Michael J.; Ryan, Russell E.; Tompkins, Scott; Willmer, Christopher N. A.; Bhatawdekar, Rachana (November 1, 2023). "JWST's PEARLS: Mothra, a new kaiju star at z = 2.091 extremely magnified by MACS0416, and implications for dark matter models". Astronomy and Astrophysics. 679: A31. doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202347556 – via NASA ADS.
- "Galaxy cluster MACS0416 with Mothra pullout". esahubble.org.
- Anderson, Natali (November 28, 2023). "Mothra: Astronomers Spot Monster Binary Star in Distant Universe". Sci.News.