The NuSTAR X-ray telescope shows the source of cosmic rays from Eta Carinae – Astronomy Now

Data from NASA's NuSTAR X-ray telescope indicate that Eta Carinae, the world's brightest and most massive star system at 10,000 light-years, generates high-energy cosmic rays

Cosmic rays whose energies exceed one billion electron volts systematically enter the solar system from interstellar space, but the trajectories of these electrons, protons, and atomic nuclei to high speed are scrambled by their passage through magnetic fields. But at least some of these cosmic rays apparently come from the Eta Carinae system.

Located approximately 7500 light-years from Earth, Eta Carinae is made up of two stars containing 90 and 30 times the mass of the Sun that passes 225 million kilometers (140 million miles) one of the Every five and a half years. The famous star system was cleared up in 1843, briefly becoming the second brightest star in the sky.

"Eta Carinae's two stars cause powerful stellar winds," said Michael Corcoran, researcher at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "When these winds collide during the orbital cycle, which produces a periodic signal in low-energy X-rays, we have been following for more than two decades."

The Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope observes a similar shift in higher energy gamma radiation in the general direction of Eta Carinae, but the instrument does not have the resolve to confirm the source. Kenji Hamaguchi, astrophysicist at Goddard and lead author of a new study, says that a review of NuSTAR data and observations archived by the European Space Agency's XMM = Newton space telescope indicates that Eta Carina is a probable source.

or soft, X-rays come from the gas at the interface of stellar winds colliding where temperatures can exceed 40 million degrees Celsius (79 million degrees Fahrenheit). But NuSTAR has detected a source of radiation exceeding 30,000 electron volts, about three times more than interacting shockwaves can explain.

"Hard" x-rays show a pattern similar to the radiation variations observed in gamma rays by Fermi and at least some of the energy photos probably reach the Earth in cosmic rays.

"We have known for some time that the area around Eta Carinae is the source of energy emission in X-rays and high-energy gamma rays," says Fiona Harrison. , the principal investigator of NuSTAR and professor of astronomy at the California Institute of Technology. "But until NuSTAR is able to identify the radiation, show that it comes from the binary and study its properties in detail, the original was mysterious."