After crunching a mountain of astronomy data, Clarissa Pavao, an undergraduate at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s Prescott, Arizona campus, submitted her preliminary analysis. Her mentor’s response was swift and in all-caps. “THERE’S AN ORBIT!” he wrote. That was when Pavao, a senior Space
By studying the binary star system CPD-29 2176 , researchers are unraveling new clues to our earliest beginnings, as stardust. Scientists estimate that there are probably only about 10 such star systems in the Galaxy at present. Credit: CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. da Silva/Spaceengine/M. Zamani
This infographic illustrates the evolution of the star system CPD-29 2176, the first confirmed kilonova progenitor. Stage 1, two massive blue stars form in a binary star system. Stage 2, the larger of the two stars nears the end of its life. Stage 3, the smaller of the two stars siphons off material from its larger, more mature companion, stripping it of much of its outer atmosphere.
Pavao plotted the spectra of the Be star, but first, she had to clean up the data so they were less noisy. “The telescope looks at a star and it takes in all the light so that you can see the elements that make up this star,” she noted, “but Be stars tend to have discs of matter around them. It’s hard to see directly through all that stuff.”
“Basically, we found out how the ultra-stripped supernova interacts with the Be star, and how it goes through these weird life-cycle phases,” Pavao explained. “At some point in the future, that Be star will also be a supernova neutron star as the cycle continues. It will become a binary system with two neutron stars, millions of years from now.”A native of Belleville, Illinois, Pavao grew up in a science-focused family.
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