- Author
-
L. Decin
P. Royer
N.L.J. Cox
B. Vandenbussche
R. Ottensamer
J.A.D.L. Blommaert
M.A.T. Groenewegen
M.J. Barlow
T. Lim
F. Kerschbaum
T. Posch
C. Waelkens - Year
- 2011
- Title
- Discovery of multiple dust shells beyond 1 arcmin in the circumstellar envelope of IRC +10216 using Herschel/PACS
- Journal
- Astronomy & Astrophysics
- Volume
- 534
- Article number
- A1
- Number of pages
- 8
- Document type
- Article
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science (FNWI)
- Institute
- Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy (API)
- Abstract
-
We present new Herschel/PACS images at 70, 100, and 160 μm of the well-known, nearby, carbon-rich asymptotic giant branch star IRC+10216 revealing multiple dust shells in its circumstellar envelope. For the first time, dust shells (or arcs) are detected until 320''. The almost spherical shells are non-concentric and have an angular extent between ~40° and ~200°. The shells have a typical width of 5''-8'', and the shell separation varies in the range of ~10''-35'', corresponding to ~500 -1 700 yr. Local density variations within one arc are visible. The shell/intershell density contrast is typically ~4, and the arcs contain some 50% more dust mass than the smooth envelope. The observed (nested) arcs record the mass-loss history over the past 16 000 yr, but Rayleigh-Taylor and Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities in the turbulent astropause and astrosheath will erase any signature of the mass-loss history for at least the first 200 000 yr of mass loss. Accounting for the bowshock structure, the envelope mass around IRC+10216 contains >2 Msun of gas and dust mass. It is argued that the origin of the shells is related to non-isotropic mass-loss events and clumpy dust formation.
Herschel is an ESA space observatory with science instruments provided by European-led Principal Investigator consortia and with important participation from NASA.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - URL
- go to publisher's site
- Language
- English
- Persistent Identifier
- https://hdl.handle.net/11245/1.367694
- Downloads
-
367694.pdf(Final published version)
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