Complex Stellar Winds around Red Giant Stars

Stars with a mass of less than 8 solar masses end their lives as planetary nebulae, structures of ionized gas thrown off by the star and heated by the stellar core. Planetary nebulae are often bipolar in shape or contain complex morphological features such as rings or spirals.

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have mapped the stellar winds blowing out from red giant stars and found that their stellar winds have distinct non-spherical geometries with morphological similarities to planetary nebulae.

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Image credit: ALMA / ESO / NAOJ / NRAO / Decin et al.

These ALMA images show the stellar winds around red giant stars; the blue color represents material that is coming towards us; red is material that is moving away from us.

Source / Image Courtesy

Image credit: ALMA / ESO / NAOJ / NRAO / Decin et al.

This ALMA image shows the stellar wind around R Aquilae.

Source / Image Courtesy

See the odd stellar orbits and evolution of a triple star system