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TOPIC: PTF10fqs

Blobrana

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Posts: 131433

Date: Jun 9 05:56 2012

PTF 10fqs	Permalink

Hubble Spots a Bright Spark in a Nearby Spiral Galaxy In recent years, a number of unexplained phenomena in Messier 99 have been studied by astronomers. Among these is the nature of one of the brighter stars visible in this image. Catalogued as PTF 10fqs, and visible as a yellow-orange star in the top-left corner of this image, it was first spotted by the Palomar Transient Facility, which scans the skies for sudden changes in brightness (or transient phenomena, to use astronomers' jargon). These can be caused by different kinds of event, including variable stars and supernova explosions. What is unusual about PTF 10fqs is that it has so far defied classification: it is brighter than a nova (a bright eruption on a star's surface), but fainter than a supernova (the explosion that marks the end of life for a large star). Scientists have offered a number of possible explanations, including the intriguing suggestion that it could have been caused by a giant planet plunging into its parent star. Read more __________________

Blobrana

L

Posts: 131433

Date: May 11 06:21 2010

RE: PTF10fqs	Permalink

Title: PTF10fqs: A Luminous Red Nova in the Spiral Galaxy Messier 99 Authors: Mansi M. Kasliwal, S. R. Kulkarni, Robert M. Quimby, Eran O. Ofek, Peter Nugent, Janet Jacobsen, Avishay Gal-Yam, Yoav Green, Iair Arcavi, Ofer Yaron, Jacob L. Howell, Derek B. Fox, S. Bradley Cenko, Io Kleiser, Joshua S. Bloom, Adam Miller, Dovi Poznanski, Weidong Li, Alexei V. Filippenko, Dan Starr, Nicholas M. Law, George Helou, Dale A. Frail, James D. Neill, Karl Forster, D. Christopher Martin, Shriharsh P. Tendulkar, Neil Gehrels, Jamie Kennea, Mark Sullivan, Richard Dekany, Gustavo Rahmer, David Hale, Roger Smith, Jeff Zolkower, Viswa Velur, Richard Walters, John Henning, Kahnh Bui, Dan McKenna, Cullen Blake The Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) is systematically charting the optical transient and variable sky. A primary science driver of PTF is building a complete inventory of transients in the local Universe (distance less than 200 Mpc). Here, we report the discovery of PTF10fqs, a transient in the luminosity "gap" between novae and supernovae. Located in the spiral arm of Messier 99, PTF10fqs is red, slowly evolving and has a spectrum dominated by intermediate width Halpha and Calcium lines. The explosion signature is similar to M85OT2006-1, SN2008S and NGC300-OT. The origin of these events is shrouded in mystery, controversy (and in some cases, in dust). PTF10fqs shows some evidence of a broad feature (around 8600A) that may suggest very large velocities in this explosion (~10000 km/s). Ongoing surveys can be expected to find a few such events per year. Sensitive spectroscopy and statistics (disk versus bulge) will eventually make it possible for astronomers to unravel the nature of these mysterious explosions. Read more (1005kb, PDF) __________________

Blobrana

L

Posts: 131433

Date: May 11 01:15 2010

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A magnitude 20.1 extragalactic nova, PTF10fqs (M99 2010-03a), was discovered by the Palomar Transient Factory in the galaxy M99, on the 16th March, 2010. The nova is located 8.1" east and 99.9" north from the center of the galaxy. Position (2000): RA 12 18 50.16, Dec +14°26'39.2" __________________

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