Donald Savage

Headquarters, Washington, DC August 6,

1997
(Phone: 202/358-1547)

Tammy Jones
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
(Phone: 301/286-5566)

Ray Villard
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD
(Phone: 410/338-4514)

Megan Watzke
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA
(Phone: 617/495-7463)

RELEASE: 97-171

HUBBLE SEPARATES STARS IN THE MIRA BINARY

SYSTEM

Although the giant star Mira has been known for 400 years,
astronomers have had to wait for NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to
provide the first ultraviolet images of the extended atmosphere of the cool
red giant star and its nearby hot companion.

By giving astronomers a clear view of the individual members of this

system, Hubble has provided valuable insights into other types of double
star systems where the stars are so close they interact with one another.

The separation between Mira and its companion is about 70 times more
than that between Earth and the Sun, (equal to an angular size of only 0.6
arcseconds -- the apparent diameter of a dime at four miles away) even
smaller than the typically fuzzy ground-based telescopic image of a single
star as smeared out by Earth's turbulent atmosphere.

Using the European Space Agency's Faint Object Camera aboard

Hubble, Margarita Karovska and John Raymond of the Harvard-
Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA; Warren Hack of the
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD; and Edward Guinan of
Villanova University, Villanova, PA, obtained both ultraviolet and visible
light images and spectra of the two separate stars in the Mira system. The
results appear in the June 20 Astrophysical Journal Letters.

In ultraviolet light, Hubble has resolved a small hook-like appendage

extending from Mira in the direction of the companion, which might be
material from Mira being gravitationally drawn toward the smaller star.
Alternately, it could be material in Mira's upper atmosphere being heated
due to the companion's presence.

Hubble's visible-light images show that Mira has an odd, asymmetrical

shape resembling a football. This may be tied to dramatic changes
occurring during its expansion-contraction cycles, or to the presence of
unresolved spots on its surface. Hubble allows astronomers to measure the
star's size at about 60 milliarcseconds, corresponding to a diameter some
700 times larger than our Sun. If Mira were at the center of our solar
system, it would extend out more than 300 million miles, well beyond
Mars' orbit and nearly two-thirds of the way to Jupiter.

Mira (officially called Omicron Ceti in the constellation Cetus) is the

prototype for an entire class of stars known as "Mira-type variables."
Although once like our Sun, Mira is now at the end of its life, and has
evolved into a cool red giant star that is highly variable in brightness.
Contracting and expanding every 332 days, Mira sheds vast amounts of
material through its powerful "wind" of gas and dust.

Mira's companion is a burned-out star called a white dwarf that is

surrounded by material captured from Mira's wind. At a distance of about
400 light-years, Mira is the closest wind-accreting binary system to Earth.

Separating the spectra of Mira and its companion -- something

astronomers previously have tried to do through indirect means -- is a
crucial step for studies of physical processes associated with wind accretion
in binaries.

Mira was discovered on August 13, 1596, by Dutch astronomer David

Fabricus, who mistook it for a nova because it later faded from view. He
called it Mira, meaning "The Wonderful." Astronomers later realized it was
really the first case of a variable star.

The Space Telescope Science Institute is operated by the Association of

Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract
with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. The Hubble
Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA
and the European Space Agency.

EDITORS NOTE: The Hubble images of Mira are available to media

representatives by calling the Imaging Branch at NASA Headquarters at
202/358-1900. Photo number is: (color) 97-HC-537.

Image files in GIF and JPEG format and captions may be accessed on
the Internet via anonymous ftp from oposite.stsci.edu in /pubinfo.

GIF JPEG
PRC97-26 Mira gif/mira.gif jpeg/mira.jpg

Higher resolution digital versions (300 dpi JPEG) of the release photograph
are available in /pubinfo/hrtemp: 97-26.jpg (color) and 97-26bw.jpg (black
& white).

GIF and JPEG images, captions and press release text are available via
the World Wide Web at URL:

http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/97/26.html and via links in

http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/Latest.html or
http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/Pictures.html

-end-