From: Philip Plait (badastro@smarty.smart.net)
Date: Thu Aug 19 1999 - 07:54:05 MDT
My two cents about the mystery object: I study low mass stars, some
of which are so cool they can have all sorts of weird atmospheric
absorption. We see water vapor (steam!) in some, for example.
A star is basically a source of continuum emission with selected
wavelengths absorbed out by its atmosphere. In these cool stars,
molecules form in the atmosphere and absorb away broad bands,
leaving large gaps, narrow gaps, spikes, all sorts of features.
In very cool stars, there's hardly any continuum left; just a zoo
of bumps and wiggles. Getting colors and temperatures from such
stars is difficult! It's like randomly selecting three pages
from a novel and trying to deduce the plot.
While I am intrigued by looking for pulses in those two peaks
in the spectrum, I wonder if they are simply remnants of a heavily
absorbed continuum spectrum. I'm personally wondering if this
thing is a very weird nearby star or a very weird distant quasar!
I'm also interested in looking into this object myself.
I'll have more about it on my website as I find out more.
-Phil
* * * * * The Bad Astronomer * * * *
Phil Plait badastro@badastronomy.com
The Bad Astronomy Web Page: http://www.badastronomy.com
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