The James Webb Space Telescope provides unprecedented views of the dust formation process in the Wolf-Rayet 140 binary system, revealing rapid expansion of carbon-rich dust shells.
Concentric rings of dust form around the binary star system known as Wolf-Rayet 140 . This dust originates from the collisions of the stellar winds from the two stars, which occur every few years. These winds are rich in carbon, and when they collide, the gas is compressed, leading to the formation of dust. The dust is only produced during a specific phase in the stars' orbit, called periastron, resulting in distinct rings of dust that expand outward from the stars.
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), with its infrared vision, was used to observe this dust formation process in detail. This imagery revealed the expanding dust rings and provided insights into the dynamics of the colliding winds. Astronomers believe that evolved Wolf-Rayet stars and their colliding winds might be responsible for creating some of the first carbonaceous dust grains and organic material in the universe. The JWST captured images of WR 140 about 5.5 years after the last periastron in 2016 and again about 14 months after its initial observation. The images show a significant expansion of the dust rings in a relatively short period.These observations demonstrate how quickly changes can occur in the cosmos. The dust shells are expanding at a rate of over 2,600 kilometers per second, about 1% of the speed of light. This rapid movement is unusual in astronomical phenomena, which are often characterized by slow changes over vast timescales. WR 140 stands out among known WC stars producing dust rings due to the extent of its circumstellar shells, which are larger than those observed around other dust-forming WC systems by factors of 4 or more. The stars orbit each other at a wide distance, and their winds collide every eight years, producing carbon-rich dust for several months during this periastron. The dust from WR 140 provides a valuable opportunity to study the formation and dynamics of dust in the interstellar medium
JWST Wolf-Rayet 140 Binary Star Dust Formation Carbon-Rich Dust Stellar Winds Periastron Interstellar Medium
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