A retrospective look at Sirius B in its red supergiant phase

On May 3, 3:04*pm, BradGuth wrote:
I bet you think we’ve seen just about everything Sirius has to offer.
(think again)
*http://www.cosmicastronomy.com/oscillat.htm#sirius

Red giant stars are many, and yet remain a little hard to come by, as
only a few public images of whatever is within 1000 light years seem
to exist that fit within the bloated size and color saturated eye-
candy profiles that we’ve been taught to accept. *However, the visible
spectrum is extremely limited as to what is otherwise technically
accessible from just above and below our genetically limited and thus
inferior visual spectrum. (seems entirely odd that our human evolution
was rather careless in having discarded so much visual capability, in
that other creatures seem to have a far wider visual spectrum
capability that includes some UV and IR without any applied
technology)

“Red Giant Star Found to Have Massive Tail” *The obvious bow-wave
proves that even 64 km/s is pushing towards the intergalactic terminal
velocity of stellar motion for items of this volumetric size.
*http://www.efluxmedia.com/news_Red_G...Have_Massive_T....
*Mira_A of 1.2 M solar mass and several hundred solar radii (UV
colorized as bluish): “A dying star situated 400 light years away from
us exhibits an unusual and massive tail of heated gas that spreads for
more than 13 light years.” *Trekking it’s way through space at a rogue
velocity of 64 km/s none the less.
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mira
*http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/galex/20070815/a.html

Sirius B could have been much like an image of Mira A, except a whole
lot larger (5001000 solar radii), as viewed in visible and near IR as
that of a red supergiant star.
*http://xmm.esac.esa.int/external/xmm...osium/173770_m....

Mira A and lots more composite observationology from FAS
*http://www.fas.org/irp/imint/docs/rst/Sect20/A6.html

There are many possibilities, as for how Sirius B used to function as
a truly massive (9 solar mass) star, thereby extremely hot and fast
burning prior to becoming a red supergiant, creating an impressive
planetary nebula phase before ending as the little white dwarf. *For
all we know Sirius B was even a variable kind of red giant and then
perhaps a slow nova flashover phase prior to finishing off as the
white dwarf.

These following examples are probably similar or perhaps representing
a slightly smaller version of what the Sirius star/solar system looked
like once Sirius B had started turning itself from an impressive red
supergiant into a white dwarf of perhaps 1/8th its original mass,
taking roughly 64~96,000 years for this explosive mass shedding phase
to happen. *A few tens of billions of years later is when such a white
dwarf eventually becomes a black dwarf, kind of black diamond spent
star, in that our universe may or may not be quite old enough to
display such examples.
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_nebula
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helix_Nebula
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat%27s_Eye_Nebula
*http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap031207.html
*http://www.uv.es/jrtorres/index6.html

Betelgeuse has been a massive red giant at 20+ fold the mass of our
sun, and likely worth somewhat better than two fold the mass of the
original Sirius B, as Betelgeuse currently having expanded to 1000
solar radii and growing, it'll certainly become a truly impressive
nova whenever it transforms into a white dwarf that’s nearly the size
of Saturn.

The soon to be renewed and improved Hubble should accomplish the
improved spectrum, resolution and several extra DB in dynamic range of
imaging most everything, along with other existing and soon to be
deployed telescopes should give us even better composite examples of
what Sirius B used to look like. *This may give some of us a better
interpretation as to what transpired right next door to us, as well as
having unavoidably contributed to some of what our solar system has to
offer.

Perhaps there’s too much information about the Sirius star/solar
system for the public to grasp without causing more faith-based harm
than good.
*http://www.cosmicastronomy.com/oscillat.htm#sirius

*~ BG

Not so terribly long ago Sirius_B had become a very impressive red
supergiant, and according to the previous examples of similar stellar
evolution, this extremely nearby hydrogen flashover from red
supergiant to becoming a white dwarf could not have gone unnoticed by
whatever terrestrial human, animal or plant. Just now further
pondering, besides the extended IR, visible and UV bonus that had to
exist, how many days of gamma and hard X-ray saturation are we talking
about?

According to Steve Willner, the nearby stellar creation or cosmic
assimilation process of forming something like Sirius ABC transpired
fairly quickly, say within 10 some odd million years if all goes
according to plan, along with most of its protostellar disc remainders
having dissipated within only a few million years thereafter, rather
than the billion all-inclusive years that I’d previously thought.

On Apr 24, 1:10 pm, (Steve Willner) wrote:
The collapse time scale for an idealized giant molecular cloud is
about a million years. Real clouds collapse slower than that by
perhaps a factor of 10, probably because of internal gas turbulence.

You can see that the time scale is likely to be much shorter than
"billions of years" by observing that something over 90% of baryons
are incorporated into stars.

Protostellar disks form in a few hundred thousand years and dissipate
in a few million years. For galactic disks, formation time scales
are a few hundred million years. No "billions" at all.

This means that a minimum 12,000 120,000 solar mass worthy molecular
cloud which gave birth to the original 12 solar mass of the Sirius
star/solar system took perhaps as little as 1215 million years in
order to complete that initial process, rapping everything up as of
perhaps no greater than 300 MBP to perhaps as recent as 250 MBP.

Meanwhile, our passive solar system was supposedly fully established
and cruising extremely nearby or even situated within that very same
molecular cloud, and yet somehow (far beyond my comprehension) having
managed to avoid any kind of give or take interactions, indirect
trauma or benefit from such a nearly cosmic event of collapsing
baryons forming into the originally impressive Sirius star/solar
system, that’s still worth nearly 3.5 the mass of our solar system.

Perhaps Steve Willner along with a good public funded supercomputer
simulation can further improve our deductive understanding of this
nearby stellar formation and complex environment of such a nifty
molecular cloud of perhaps at least 12,000 120,000 solar masses,
that supposedly didn’t affect us from its beginning, throughout its
normal stellar evolution, or that of its impressive red supergiant
phase that could easily have been worth 1000 radii, and of its
subsequent recent end of life phase at becoming a compact white dwarf
which thereby having lost its tidal radius grip upon whatever planets
and possibly even a third significant main sequence star of 2e30 kg.
Are we that lucky, or what!

~ BG