Astronomers at the Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory, Armenia, have discovered a powerful flare from a young stellar object (YSO) located inside a molecular cloud called UKIDSS-J185318.36 + 012454.5. This newly discovered event could help to better understand the variability of young stars associated with stellar eruptions.
Object UKIDSS-J185318.36 + 012454.5 is located in the vicinity of the source IRAS 18507 + 0121 and, probably, belongs to a massive star-forming region associated with the GAL 034.4 + 00.23 HII region. This object is located at least 5,000 light-years from Earth, and in its vicinity are massive protostars approximately 100,000 years old, as well as a population of smaller stars, which are approximately 1 million years old. This stellar object has been classified as YSO of average mass and less than 100,000 years old.
Recently, a team of researchers led by Elena Nikoghosyan, after analyzing the data and images obtained with the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT), located in Hawaii, discovered a flash at the UKIDSS-J185318.36 + 012454.5 object that occurred between 2004 and 2006 biennium
According to the authors of the work, the outburst amplitude was at least five magnitude units. The object remained at this new brightness level until 2014.
Flares on such young stellar objects are very rare events, which explains the importance of this discovery. The authors of the study considered several physical mechanisms, including rotation, hot or cold spots on the star, and a number of other mechanisms, to explain such a powerful flare in the infrared range, but they emphasize that all these mechanisms lead only to short-term variability, the amplitude of which does not exceed one unit magnitude in the K range. Thus, at the moment, Nikoghosyan's team does not have a satisfactory explanation for the observation results, and scientists plan to continue their research aimed at comprehending the nature of this mysterious stellar object.
The study appeared on the arxiv.org advanced scientific publications server.