Blue supergiants look like rock and roll stars: these massive stars live a short life and die young. Therefore, these stars are rare in the universe, and their study is difficult even with the help of modern telescopes.
Before the advent of space telescopes, astronomers could observe only a few blue supergiants in the night sky, so our knowledge of the stars of this spectral class was very limited.
Astrophysicist Dr. Tamara Rogers of the University of Newcastle, United Kingdom, has worked with her team over the past five years to model such stars, trying to understand why their surface looks exactly as we see it during observations.
Modeling the structure of the stars, the team predicted that hydrodynamic gravitational waves, similar to those we see in the ocean, are breaking at the surface of the blue giant.
In addition, a second type of wave was predicted. These coherent waves resemble seismic waves on Earth and are generated deep in the depths of a star.
Now, using data collected by NASA space telescopes, a team of researchers led by Dr. Dominic Bowman from the Institute of Astronomy, Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, for the first time conducted a detailed analysis of stars of this spectral class and found that almost all blue supergiants flicker reason for the presence of waves of these two types on the surface.
As predicted, these waves form deep in the depths of the star and can be a source of valuable information about the structure of stars of this class. This direction of studying the structure of stars is called astroseismology.
Although earlier we predicted the existence of these waves, but only now we were able to confirm their presence by observations. This is indeed a very inspiring moment for us!
-Dr. Rogers, co-author of the study
Blue supergiants are factories of metals of our Universe. In the depths of these stars all elements of the Periodic Table D.I. are formed. Mendeleev – which turns 150 years old this year – is heavier than helium, the authors note.
Astronomers reveal the secrets of the blue supergiants
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