WR 135 is a
variable
Variable may refer to:
* Variable (computer science), a symbolic name associated with a value and whose associated value may be changed
* Variable (mathematics), a symbol that represents a quantity in a mathematical expression, as used in many ...
Wolf-Rayet star located around 6,000 light years away from
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...
in the constellation of
Cygnus, surrounded by a faint bubble nebula blown by the intense radiation and fast wind from the star. It is just over four times the radius of the sun, but due to a temperature of 63,000 K it is 250,000 times as luminous as the sun.
WR 135, together with
WR 134
WR 134 is a variable Wolf-Rayet star located around 6,000 light years away from Earth in the constellation of Cygnus, surrounded by a faint bubble nebula blown by the intense radiation and fast wind from the star. It is five times the ...
and
WR 137
WR 137 is a variable Wolf-Rayet star located around 6,000 light years away from Earth in the constellation of Cygnus.
WR 137, together with WR 134 and WR 135, was one of three stars in Cygnus observed in 1867 to have unusual spectra ...
, was one of three stars in
Cygnus observed in 1867 to have unusual spectra consisting of intense
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 identi ...
s rather than the more normal continuum and
absorption lines. These were the first members of the class of stars that came to be called Wolf-Rayet stars (WR stars) after
Charles Wolf and
Georges Rayet
Georges-Antoine-Pons Rayet (12 December 1839 – 14 June 1906) was a French astronomer.
He was born in Bordeaux, France. He began working at the Paris Observatory in 1863. He worked on meteorology in addition to astronomy. He specialized ...
who discovered their unusual appearance. It is a member of the carbon sequence of WR stars, indicated by the lack of nitrogen lines and the strength of carbon emission. WR 135 has a spectrum with C
III emission slightly stronger than C
IV, leading to the assignment of a WC8 spectral type. The spectrum also shows strong He
I emission and weaker lines of He
II and C
II.
WR 135 is less than a degree away from WR 134 and the two are believed to lie at approximately the same distance from Earth within the Cygnus OB3 association.
Both stars lie within a shell of hydrogen thought to have been swept up from the interstellar medium when one or both stars were on the main sequence. The shell is over forty parsecs wide and contains about of hydrogen. It is unclear which of the two stars is primarily responsible for creating the shell.
WR 135 has two close companions. HD 228235 is an 11th magnitude star 53" away and there is also a 12th magnitude star 41" away.
References
External links
Wolf-Rayet shellsshowing a spectrum of WR 135
WR134 Ring Nebulawith WR 135 visible in the top left corner
{{Stars of Cygnus
Cygnus (constellation)
Wolf–Rayet stars
Cygni, V1042
099525
192103
Durchmusterung objects