The double star HD 87643

Observations made with ESO's Very Large Telescope Interferometer allowed a team of astronomers to discover that the star HD 87643, which lies at the centre of a dusty nebula, has a companion located about 50 times the mean Earth-Sun distance. This companion completes an orbit in a few tens of years and may be responsible for the regular ejections of material that created the nebula. By combining the light from various combinations of three of the telescopes forming the VLT array, the interferometric technique reveals details 100 times smaller than shown with the NACO adaptive optics instrument. The field of view is only 100 milli-arcseconds, or less than one third of a single WFI pixel.

Credit:

ESO/F. Millour et al.

About the Image

Id:eso0928c
Type:Observation
Release date:5 August 2009
Related releases:eso0928
Size:256 x 256 px

About the Object

Name:HD 87643
Type:Milky Way : Star
Category:Nebulae
Stars

Image Formats

Large JPEG
12.8 KB
Screensize JPEG
24.2 KB

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Colours & filters

BandTelescope
Infrared
K
Very Large Telescope Interferometer
AMBER