A high-speed bi-polar outflow from the archetypical pulsating star Mira A

Abstract

Optical images and high-dispersion spectra have been obtained of the ejected material surrounding the pulsating AGB star Mira A. The two streams of knots on either side of the star, found in far ultra-viollet (FUV) GALEX images, have now been imaged clearly in the light of Halpha. Spatially resolved profiles of the same line reveal that the bulk of these knots form a bi-polar outflow with radial velocity extremes of +- 150 km/s with respect to the central star. The South stream is approaching and the North stream receding from the observer. A displacement away from Mira A between the position of one of the South stream knots in the new Halpha image and its position in the previous Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS I) red plate has been noted. If interpreted as a consequence of expansion proper motions the bipolar outflow is tilted at 69deg +- 2deg to the plane of the sky, has an outflow velocity of 160 +- 10 km/s and is ~1000 y old.

8 pages, 5 figures. Accepted for pubication by A&A

References in corpus (4)

• It's a wonderful tail: the mass loss history of Mira
• Discovery of an HI Counterpart to the Extended Tail of Mira
• Hubble-type outflows of the high-excitation, poly-polar planetary nebula NGC 6302 -- from expansion proper motions
• A deep mosaic of [O III] 5007 A CCD images of the environment of the LBV star P Cygni

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• The Shapes of AGB Envelopes as Probes of Binary Companions
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• Large-scale environments of binary AGB stars probed by Herschel. II: Two companions interacting with the wind of pi1 Gruis
• Morphology and kinematics of the gas envelope of Mira Ceti
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• Is Mira a magneto-dusty rotator?
• Flickering in AGB stars: Probing the nature of accreting companions
• Mira Ceti, atypical archetype
• Revealing new features of the millimetre emission of the circumbinary envelope of Mira Ceti