(ORDO NEWS) — Astronomers from the University of La Laguna, Spain, and their colleagues from other scientific institutions have made spectroscopic observations of an early type B supergiant known as 2MASS J20395358+4222505. The results of this observation campaign provide important information about the nature of this object.
Supergiants are evolved high-mass stars that are larger and more luminous than main-sequence stars. The study of such objects is of great importance for understanding the evolution of stars; however, their observations are difficult due to the fact that they are located relatively far from us, and also form mainly in binary or multiple systems and are associated with dense clouds of material in the interstellar medium.
The object 2MASS J20395358+4222505 is a B0 I supergiant belonging to the Cygnus OB2 stellar association and exhibiting significant interstellar reddening. This star is approximately 5,730 light-years from Earth and has an absolute magnitude of approximately -9.8, making it one of the brightest objects among B-type supergiants.
Given that J20395358+4222505 is a relatively poorly understood supergiant , a team of astronomers led by Artemio Herrero of the University of La Laguna studied it in detail using a multi-object integrated field spectrograph called MEGARA, mounted on the 10.4-meter Gran Telescopio CANARIAS (GTC) telescope.
The observations made showed that the object J20395358+4222505 is approximately 41.2 times larger than the Sun, while its spectroscopic mass is 46.5 times the mass of our star. The star has an effective temperature of 24,000 Kelvin and a rotation speed of about 110 kilometers per second.
According to the data obtained, the star has a spectral type of B1 Ia and is in the process of transition from the class of supergiants to hypergiants.
The authors also suggested that the star was originally part of a binary system, since it has an increased rotation speed, quickly loses mass, and also has a chemical composition characteristic of stars that were previously part of binary systems.
The authors believe that the star J20395358+4222505 played the role of a secondary component in the original system. However, further study of the system is required to confirm the hypothesis, they add.
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