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Integral reveals exotic and dusty binary systems
5 June 2008
| This is an artist's impression of a supergiant high-mass X-ray binary system.
ESA’s orbiting gamma-ray observatory Integral has revealed a new population of these exotic and dusty binary stars. These binary systems consist of a neutron star orbiting around a supergiant star. It is possible that these systems represent a brief evolutionary period in a binary star’s life. The results also bring to light a gap in our knowledge about how such binary star systems are formed and evolve.
Integral discovered what appeared to be 15 supergiant high-mass X-ray binaries (HMXB). The supergiant star is at least 20 times larger than the Sun, contains 30 solar masses, with luminosity one million times greater and a temperature of 20000K. The neutron star was once a massive star itself, but has reached the end of its life and collapsed into a tiny stellar remnant just 15km across.
Sylvain Chaty, University of Paris Diderot, and CEA Saclay France, and colleagues have used Integral, along with X-ray satellites and ESO telescopes, to target the fifteen new discoveries and confirm that most are indeed supergiant HMXBs, some of them enshrouded by a cocoon of gas and dust.
Credits: ESA (Animation by C. Carreau) | |  |  | |
| | | | | This is an artist’s impression of ESA’s orbiting gamma-ray observatory, Integral.
Credits: ESA | | | | |
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| | ESA's gamma-ray astronomy mission ESApod  Integral anniversaryRelated articles Integral: Stellar winds colliding at our cosmic doorstepX-rays betray giant particle accelerator in the skyIntegral discovers the galaxy’s antimatter cloud is lopsidedUnderstanding our neighbourhood in the universeExtension of ESA’s Integral and XMM-Newton missions approvedNew scientific riches from IntegralRadioactive iron, a window to the starsIntegral points to the fastest spinning neutron starScience with Integral – five years onIn depth Integral in-depthRelated ESA publications Integral results leaflet (pdf)Integral mission brochure (pdf)
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