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NASA's Hubble Finds Sizzling Details About Young Star FU Orionis

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November 21, 2024 1:00PM (EST)Release ID: 2024-037
Artist's concept of early stages of the young star FU Orionis outburst. The star, a bright yellow sphere near the center, and its fluffy disk of gas and dust are slightly tilted, extending from the top left corner to the bottom right. The swirling disk is bright yellow close to the star and gradually transitions to dark orange moving toward the edges of the frame. The top left and right corners reveal a black, starless background.

Summary

Ultraviolet light reveals new information about the eruptive star's mechanisms.

In 1936, young star FU Orionis (FU Ori) underwent a significant increase in brightness and has slowly declined in luminosity ever since. Once considered to be a stand-alone case, scientists have noted a small class of extremely tumultuous, young stars that experience large escalations in brightness, known as FU Ori objects.

To learn about the conditions that can lead to such significant growth in brightness, a team of astronomers wielded NASA's Hubble Space Telescope's ultraviolet capabilities to learn more about the relationship between FU Ori's stellar surface and its accretion disk. They found new, shocking details in the process.

Full Article

In 1936, astronomers saw a puzzling event in the constellation Orion: the young star FU Orionis (FU Ori) became a hundred times brighter in a matter of months. At its peak, FU Ori was intrinsically 100 times brighter than our Sun. Unlike an exploding star though, it has declined in luminosity only languidly since then. Now, a team of astronomers has wielded NASA's Hubble Space Telescope's ultraviolet capabilities to learn more about the interaction between FU Ori's stellar surface and the accretion disk that has been dumping gas onto the growing star for nearly 90 years. They find that the inner ...

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