Swarthmore College Astronomers Discover New Star in Southern Cross (Forwarded)
- From: Andrew Yee <ayee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 01:20:08 GMT
News & Information
Swarthmore College
Swarthmore, Pennsylvania
Contact: Alisa Giardinelli
Phone: (610) 690-5717
For Immediate Release: January 17, 2007
Swarthmore Astronomers Discover New Star in Southern Cross
A research team at Swarthmore College discovered a previously unknown
companion to the bright star, beta Crucis, in the Southern Cross. As a
prominent member of the well-known constellation Crux, or the Southern
Cross, it appears on five national flags: Australia, Brazil, New Zealand,
Papua New Guinea, and Samoa. The discovery was announced at the American
Astronomical Society meeting held in Seattle Jan. 5-10.
The companion star was discovered accidentally while the research team was
using the orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory to study the x-rays emitted
by beta Crucis itself. "We were interested in how the highly supersonic
stellar winds of hot, luminous stars produce x-rays," says team leader
David Cohen, asssociate professor of astronomy. "We were surprised to see
two strong x-ray sources where we had expected to see only one."
Astrophysics major Michael Kuhn '07 of Charlottesville, Va., presented the
findings in Seattle. His work analyzing the x-ray data from both beta
Crucis and its newly-discovered companion is the basis for a forthcoming
paper on this project in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical
Society.
Cohen's research team also includes Swarthmore College Associate Professor
of Astronomy Eric Jensen and Marc Gagné, associate professor in the
geology and astronomy department at West Chester University of
Pennsylvania. Their project was funded by NASA and by a Eugene M. Lang
Summer Research Fellowship from Swarthmore.
Higher quality images from the press release, as well as supplementary
images and information, are available at
http://astro.swarthmore.edu/~cohen/bcru
For more information:
Prof. David H. Cohen
Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
Swarthmore College, Swarthmore PA 19081
(610) 328-8587 (office)
.
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