The doomed class of stars named Wolf-Rayets produce mysterious pinwheel shapes
Astronomers tend to exhaust superlatives when they talk about the ferociously hot and luminous stars known as Wolf-Rayets, which are among the largest, hottest and rarest stars in the universe. Wolf-Rayets are believed to be the final, fleeting stage in the lives of the most massive stars—those starting life with anywhere from 20 to more than 200 times the mass of the sun.
An Enigma Is Born In 1876, when French astronomers Charles Wolf and Georges Rayet first puzzled over three stars in the constellation of Cygnus, the science of spectroscopy—studying astronomical objects by spreading their light into its constituent colors—was in its infancy. Still, Wolf and Rayet had seen enough normal stars to know that something deeply bizarre was going on.
Even a tiny handful of these overachievers can profoundly impact the ecosystem of an entire galaxy. Streaming winds carry energy, momentum and newly forged elements out into the voids between the stars, blowing bubbles, compressing clouds and heating gas. The most important contribution to the galactic balance from Wolf-Rayet stars is the least expected: stardust.
Necessity being the mother of invention, we had no option but to think laterally. We secured a large metal mask, about the size of a trash can lid with carefully arranged perforated holes, to one of the Keck telescopes. By blocking much of the starlight, we transformed the primary mirror into an array of small collectors, allowing Keck to work much like modern radio telescopes that link many smaller antennas together. The gains in image fidelity exceeded our wildest dreams.
A New Mystery In the years since, the pinwheels have continued to fascinate, beguile and confound us.
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