WR 111 (HD 165763) is a Wolf-Rayet (WR) star in the constellation Sagittarius. It is magnitude 7.8 and lies about 5,150 light-years away. It is one of the brightest and most closely studied WR stars.

History

In 1880, Edward Pickering reported that BD−21°4864 had a spectrum similar to a

nova A nova (plural novae or novas) is a transient astronomical event that causes the sudden appearance of a bright, apparently "new" star (hence the name "nova", which is Latin for "new") that slowly fades over weeks or months. Causes of the dramati ...

, but it was apparently a non-variable star that had been near 8th magnitude since at least 1849. It was included in

Campbell Campbell may refer to: People Surname * Campbell (surname), includes a list of people with surname Campbell Given name * Campbell Brown (footballer), an Australian rules footballer * Campbell Brown (journalist) (born 1968), American television ne ...

's 1894 paper ''The Wolf-Rayet stars''. In the Henry Draper Catalogue, BD−21°4864 was listed as entry 165763 with a spectral type of Oa. It was described in 1925 as a "Be star" due to its very strong emission lines, and in 1927 as a class-O star with unusually broad emission features. After the classification of WR stars onto either the nitrogen or carbon sequence, HD 165763 was designated as WC6 and its temperature estimated from the strength of O and C emission. In 1968, the WR spectral classes were revised and HD 165763 was used as an example of class WC5. In this catalogue, considered as the fifth catalogue of Wolf Rayet stars, it was designated MR 84. In the sixth WR catalogue, the current naming convention was adopted and this star was numbered as WR 111.

Location

WR 111 is one of the 20 brightest Wolf Rayet stars in the sky. It lies in a rich

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 ...

field near to V4381 Sagittarii and HD 165516, but not apparently a member of the associated cluster.

Properties

WR 111 is considered an archetypal WC5 star, having dominant

emission line A spectral line is a dark or bright line in an otherwise uniform and continuous spectrum, resulting from emission or absorption of light in a narrow frequency range, compared with the nearby frequencies. Spectral lines are often used to iden ...

s of C, plus strong C emission as well as O, O, and O, but not O. Non-hydrodynamical atmospheric models calculate a "surface" temperature of 89,000 K. The surface in this context is defined as the depth in the atmosphere at which the optical depth reaches 20. This differs from the convention used for many types of star, due to the optically dense

stellar wind A stellar wind is a flow of gas ejected from the upper atmosphere of a star. It is distinguished from the bipolar outflows characteristic of young stars by being less collimated, although stellar winds are not generally spherically symmetric. D ...

s of WR stars. The corresponding radius is at . A more detailed individual study of WR 111 using a hydrodynamical atmospheric model gives a temperature of 140,000 K and a radius of . The apparently large difference is due largely to a difference in the depth within the atmosphere at which the radius is defined. The luminosity of WR 111 is similar in both models at - , and the masses are found to be and , respectively. The stellar wind from WR 111 is ejecting 20 millionths of the Sun's mass every year at a speed of 2,398 km/s. The mechanism driving the intense stellar wind is found to be an opacity bump deep within the atmosphere caused by highly ionised iron. The winds are then accelerated to high velocity in the outer atmosphere by less highly ionised iron and by carbon and oxygen.

References

External links

{{Stars of Sagittarius 088856 BD-21 4864 165763 Wolf–Rayet stars J18082846-2115113 Sagittarius (constellation)