BD+43 3654 is a massive luminous

blue supergiant A blue supergiant (BSG) is a hot, luminous star, often referred to as an OB supergiant. They have luminosity class I and spectral class B9 or earlier. Blue supergiants are found towards the top left of the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram, above an ...

runaway star In astronomy, stellar kinematics is the observational study or measurement of the kinematics or motions of stars through space. Stellar kinematics encompasses the measurement of stellar velocities in the Milky Way and its satellites as well as t ...

in the

constellation A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms Asterism (astronomy), a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object. The origins of the e ...

Cygnus.

Features

BD+43 3654 has a

spectral type In astronomy, stellar classification is the classification of stars based on their stellar spectrum, spectral characteristics. Electromagnetic radiation from the star is analyzed by splitting it with a Prism (optics), prism or diffraction grati ...

of O4 If with a mass around 65 times larger than the Sun, likely 850,000 times brighter, and very young, with an age that has been estimated to be around 2 million years. Its distance to the

Solar System The Solar SystemCapitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Solar S ...

has been estimated to be 1.45 kilo

parsec The parsec (symbol: pc) is a unit of length used to measure the large distances to astronomical objects outside the Solar System, approximately equal to or (au), i.e. . The parsec unit is obtained by the use of parallax and trigonometry, and ...

s (4,700

light-year A light-year, alternatively spelled light year, is a large unit of length used to express astronomical distances and is equivalent to about 9.46 trillion kilometers (), or 5.88 trillion miles ().One trillion here is taken to be 1012 ...

s) and it is moving at high speed through the

interstellar medium In astronomy, the interstellar medium is the matter and radiation that exist in the space between the star systems in a galaxy. This matter includes gas in ionic, atomic, and molecular form, as well as dust and cosmic rays. It fills interstella ...

, creating a

bow shock In astrophysics, a bow shock occurs when the magnetosphere of an astrophysical object interacts with the nearby flowing ambient plasma such as the solar wind. For Earth and other magnetized planets, it is the boundary at which the speed of ...

Origin

Studies of the trajectory and speed of BD+43 3654 relative to the other stars of the nearby, massive

stellar association A stellar association is a very loose star cluster, looser than both open clusters and globular clusters. Stellar associations will normally contain from 10 to 100 or more stars. The stars share a common origin, but have become gravitationally u ...

Cygnus OB2 Cygnus OB2 is an OB association that is home to some of the most massive and most luminous stars known, including suspected Luminous blue variable Cyg OB2 #12. It also includes one of the largest known stars, NML Cygni. The region is em ...

suggest it is a

, making it one of the most massive runaway stars known in the

Milky Way The Milky Way is the galaxy that includes our Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye ...

(along with the O-type supergiants Lambda Cephei and

Zeta Puppis Zeta Puppis (ζ Puppis, abbreviated Zeta Pup, ζ Pup), formally named Naos , is a star in the constellation of Puppis. The spectral class of O4 means this is one of the hottest, and most luminous, stars visible to th ...

). Initially it was suggested a

supernova A supernova is a powerful and luminous explosion of a star. It has the plural form supernovae or supernovas, and is abbreviated SN or SNe. This transient astronomical event occurs during the last evolutionary stages of a massive star or when ...

explosion of a former

binary system A binary system is a system of two astronomical bodies which are close enough that their gravitational attraction causes them to orbit each other around a barycenter ''(also see animated examples)''. More restrictive definitions require that thi ...

companion star caused the high velocity of BD+43 3654. Later research shows that a supernova ejection would not produce such a high space velocity. Given that BD+43 3654 appears to be younger than most stars in Cygnus OB2, an alternative scenario has been proposed in which BD+43 3654 is a massive

blue straggler A blue straggler is a main-sequence In astronomy, the main sequence is a continuous and distinctive band of stars that appears on plots of stellar color versus brightness. These color-magnitude plots are known as Hertzsprung–Russell diagrams ...

born in an encounter between two former double stars in the core of Cygnus OB2. In this setting, two stars of each binary would collide and merge forming a larger, more massive star (BD+43 3654), that would be ejected from the stellar association along with two other stars. These additional stars would end by exploding as supernovae to leave behind two

pulsar A pulsar (from ''pulsating radio source'') is a highly magnetized rotating neutron star that emits beams of electromagnetic radiation out of its magnetic poles. This radiation can be observed only when a beam of emission is pointing toward Ea ...

s. B2020+28 and B2021+51 are identified as these pulsars, as their dynamics indicate they were expelled from Cygnus OB2. A derivative consequence of the latter scenario is that the brightest and most massive stars of Cygnus OB2 would be blue stragglers too. Another theory is that runaways of this mass and velocity can be produced by an encounter between a massive single star and a close binary system. Such an encounter is expected to send the binary system in the opposite direction to the single star, and no such massive binary has been found corresponding to BD+43 3654.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:BD 43 3654 O-type supergiants Emission-line stars Blue stragglers Runaway stars Cygnus (constellation) BD 43 3654 J20333607+4359075

Features

Origin

See also

References