Tomasz Nowakowski is a writer for Phys.org.
Astronomers from the University of La Laguna, Spain and other places have observed a B-type supergiant star called 2MASS J20395358+4222505. The results of this observational campaign were published on February 23 on the arXiv pre-print server.
Supergiants are larger and more powerful than main-sequence stars. Studying such objects is important for improving our understanding of stellar evolution, however, their observation is complicated due to the fact that they are relatively far away, are born in multiple systems, and are associated with dense clouds of interstellar material.
2MASS J20395358+4222505 is a supergiant of type B0 I in the vicinity of the Cygnus OB2 association. The star is located some 5,730 light years away from the Earth and has an absolute magnitude of -9.8, which makes it one of the most luminous objects among the B supergiants.
A team of astronomer led by University of La Laguna's Artemio Herrero investigated J20395358+4222505 using the MEGARA integral-field and multi-object fiber spectrograph at the Gran Telescopio CANARIAS.
In this paper we present new observations of J20395358+4222505 obtained with MEGARA at the 10.4m GTC telescope and a first analysis to obtain its stellar parameters.
J20395358+4222505 is 41.2 times larger than the sun, and has a spectroscopic mass of 46.5 solar mass. The star has an effective temperature of 24,000 K.
The hydrogen-alpha emission was identified by the astronomer. The chemical composition of the star is similar to that of our sun. The abundance analysis allowed the team to conclude that J20395358+4222505 has a B1 Ia.
The researchers think that J20395358+4222505 will join the group of B hypergiants in the near future. They think that the star was part of a system due to its high mass-loss rate and chemical abundance.
The authors noted that with the nearly solar CNO and abundance pattern, they may also point to evolution.
Further observations of J20395358+4222505 are required in order to find stronger evidence of a former companion.
More information: The nature of the Cygnus extreme B-supergiant 2MASS J20395358+4222505, arXiv:2202.11806 [astro-ph.SR] arxiv.org/abs/2202.11806The Science X Network will be launched in 2022.
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