Herschel's view into Mira's head

Abstract

Herschel's PACS instrument observed the environment of the binary system Mira Ceti in the 70 and 160 micron bands. These images reveal bright structures shaped as five broken arcs and fainter filaments in the ejected material of Mira's primary star. The overall shape of the IR emission around Mira deviates significantly from the expected alignment with Mira's exceptionally high space velocity. The observed broken arcs are neither connected to each other nor are they of a circular shape; they stretch over angular ranges of 80 to 100 degrees. By comparing Herschel and GALEX data, we found evidence for the disruption of the IR arcs by the fast outflow visible in both Halpha and the far UV. Radial intensity profiles are derived, which place the arcs at distances of 6-85" (550 - 8000 AU) from the binary. Mira's IR environment appears to be shaped by the complex interaction of Mira's wind with its companion, the bipolar jet, and the ISM.

4 pages

References in corpus (13)

• Validation of the new Hipparcos reduction
• The Photodetector Array Camera and Spectrometer (PACS) on the Herschel Space Observatory
• Local Kinematics and the Local Standard of Rest
• Evidence for the White Dwarf Nature of Mira B
• Imaging the circumstellar envelopes of AGB stars
• MESS (Mass-loss of Evolved StarS), a Herschel Key Program
• It's a wonderful tail: the mass loss history of Mira
• Discovery of an HI Counterpart to the Extended Tail of Mira
• The Shapes of AGB Envelopes as Probes of Binary Companions
• A model of Mira's cometary head/tail entering the Local Bubble
• Cometary Astropause of Mira Revealed in the Far-Infrared
• Envelope density pattern around wide binary AGB stars: a dynamical model
• A high-speed bi-polar outflow from the archetypical pulsating star Mira A

Cited by in corpus (25)

• A far-infrared survey of bow shocks and detached shells around AGB stars and red supergiants
• HerMES: Candidate Gravitationally Lensed Galaxies and Lensing Statistics at Submillimeter Wavelengths
• The wonderful complexity of the Mira AB system
• 3D Simulations of Betelgeuse's Bow Shock
• Wide Binary Effects on Asymmetries in Asymptotic Giant Branch Circumstellar Envelopes
• Large-scale environments of binary AGB stars probed by Herschel - I. Morphology statistics and case studies of R Aquarii and W Aquilae
• The Interaction of Asymptotic Giant Branch Stars with the Interstellar Medium
• Candidate high-z proto-clusters among the Planck compact sources, as revealed by Herschel-SPIRE
• An unusual face-on spiral in the wind of the M-type AGB star EP Aquarii
• Atomium: A high-resolution view on the highly asymmetric wind of the AGB star Pi1 Gruis. I. First detection of a new companion and its effect on the inner wind
• Evidence of a Binary-Induced Spiral from an Incomplete Ring Pattern of CIT 6
• The VLTI/MIDI view on the inner mass loss of evolved stars from the Herschel MESS sample
• Rings and filaments: The remarkable detached CO shell of U Antliae
• Late Stages of Stellar Evolution - Herschel's contributions
• New Measurements of the Radio Photosphere of Mira based on Data from the JVLA and ALMA
• HST Images Reveal Dramatic Changes in the Core of IRC+10216
• Simplified models of stellar wind anatomy for interpreting high-resolution data: Analytical approach to embedded spiral geometries
• The detached dust shells around the carbon AGB stars R Scl and V644 Sco
• Morphology and kinematics of the gas envelope of Mira Ceti
• Dusty shells surrounding the carbon variables S Scuti and RT Capricorni
• Flickering in AGB stars: Probing the nature of accreting companions
• Revealing new features of the millimetre emission of the circumbinary envelope of Mira Ceti
• Search for systemic mass loss in Algols with bow shocks
• From the atmosphere to the circumstellar environment in cool evolved stars
• Differential Proper-Motion Measurements of The Cygnus Egg Nebula: The Presence of Equatorial Outflow