Other
Scientific paper
Jul 2003
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2003hst..prop.9795m&link_type=abstract
HST Proposal ID #9795
Other
Hst Proposal Id #9795 Hot Stars
Scientific paper
The spectral class O2-3 is a very early, short-lived stage in the lives of the most massive stars. We recently came across a star in the LMC whose optical spectrum shows HeII and no HeI, making it a member of this group. However, there is little or no hydrogen in the spectrum of this star, suggesting it is a highly evolved object. It is as if we were looking at the spectrum of a Wolf-Rayet {WR} star {hot and with a high He/H ratio} but without the characteristic emission lines--what we would see if a WR had no stellar wind. Nothing about this makes sense. We can rule out some obvious possibilities {composite spectrum, foreground white dwarf}. We are requesting here a single orbit so that we can examine its FUV spectrum and look at the critical stellar wind diagnostic lines; we will also take advantage of HST's spatial resolution and obtain narrow-slit spectra in the optical {Halpha and HeI 4471} that is free of nebular contamination. The star could simply be an oddity, perhaps the relic of the coalescence of two stars, or the result of some binary interaction, and of no greater significance. On the other hand, there are only a few dozen O2-3 stars that have ever been observed, and maybe this particular one is telling us that we don't know as much about massive star evolution as we thought. We really ought to follow this up and determine whether it's simply an intriguing peculiar star, or something more profoundly interesting.
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