HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE Images of the Compact Nebula around RY Scuti
Abstract
We present HST Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 images of the very massive eclipsing binary RY Scuti. The HST Hα image shows a very complex ionized nebula roughly 1" in size. Several interesting structures are revealed, including what appears to be a pair of concentric ionized rings above and below the equatorial plane of the system, located at the inner edge of a more extended dust torus. We reexamine some essential physical characteristics of the nebula, such as a possible magnetic field and the complicated mass-loss geometry of this near-Eddington limit contact binary. The effects of a rotating illumination source are considered to explain the brightness distribution in the rings. We suggest a model for the origin of the mass and detailed structure in the nebula. This model invokes a previous mass ejection that is shaped by nonspherical interacting winds and possibly magnetic fields.
- Publication:
-
The Astronomical Journal
- Pub Date:
- August 1999
- DOI:
- 10.1086/300965
- Bibcode:
- 1999AJ....118..960S
- Keywords:
-
- STARS: BINARIES: CLOSE;
- STARS: BINARIES: ECLIPSING;
- STARS: CIRCUMSTELLAR MATTER;
- STARS: INDIVIDUAL (RY SCUTI);
- STARS: MASS LOSS;
- STARS: WINDS;
- OUTFLOWS