Australian discovers new red star*

April 13, 2007 04:00am
Article from: AAP

AN unusually symmetrical, bright red new star has been discovered by an
Australian astronomer and his research team.

Christened Red Square, the bipolar nebula is the most symmetrical ever
photographed. It was captured using Adaptive Optics, a system capable of
taking images without atmospheric distortion or blurring.

University of Sydney school of physics senior lecturer Peter Tuthill and
his American colleague, James Lloyd, of Cornell University, made the
discovery while conducting a four-year project in the US researching the
birth of stars.

"We were trying to study stellar birth, looking for systems we thought
were young and in the process of forming," Dr Tuthill said.

"It (Red Square) shows many of the features associated with young stars,
but it turns out it's a dying star, one potentially about to blow up."

Dr Tuthill said a discovery like Red Square did not come around very
often in astronomy.

"The thing that really takes your breath away is the astonishing degree
of symmetry within the intricate linear forms," he said.

"If you fold things across the principal diagonal axis, you get an
almost perfect reflection symmetry.

"This makes the Red Square nebula the most symmetrical object of
comparable complexity ever imaged."

Red Square consists of twin opposed conical cavities with a sequence of
linear bars running through the heart of the system.

Dr Tuthill said it was those bars that would have astronomers studying
the system for years to come.

He said the images implied a three-dimensional structure to Red Square,
where the bars actually become elliptical rings encircling the polar axis.

He said polar rings intrigued astronomers when they were unexpectedly
revealed in the explosion of SN1987A, the only supernova visible to the
naked eye since the telescope was invented.

"If you can really get a mental grasp of the three-dimensional geometry
implied by the Red Square images, then it is fascinating to take a
second look at one of the most famous astronomical images of them all,
SN1987A," he said.

"It (Red Square) gives us a model for studying the creation of polar rings.

"It's a pretty thing too, it's a nice one to have found."

The findings will be published in the US journal Science today.