stellar wind

The steady stream of matter ejected from many types of stars, including the Sun (see solar wind). Although the mass loss is small in sunlike stars, it has been found to be very considerable in red giants and in hot luminous ultraviolet stars, particularly in Of stars and Wolf-Rayet stars. This large mass loss could have a substantial effect on the final evolution of the stars into either white dwarfs or into more massive neutron stars (or black holes). In hot stars the stellar winds are thought to be produced by radiation pressure of the intense ultraviolet radiation acting on the atoms in the stars' atmospheres. In red giants with hot coronae and low gravity the winds may simply be the expansion of the coronal gases into space. See also T Tauri wind.

Collins Dictionary of Astronomy © Market House Books Ltd, 2006

stellar wind

[′stel·ər ′wind]

(astronomy)

The flow of ionized gas from the surface of a star into interstellar space.

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References in periodicals archive

For example, some authors considered that the high energy [gamma]-rays in hadronic MQ jets, are produced from p-p collisions taking place in the jets due to the interaction of relativistic protons with target protons of the rather weak stellar wind created in the companion star [6].

Simulations of Gamma-Ray Emission from Magnetized Microquasar Jets

It was already known that the stellar wind is "clumpy", but the Herschel results have shown that some regions around the star must have no wind.

Space-gazing scientists solve the mystery of dying stars

Inside the Helix are the nebula's well-known "cometary blobs." These tailed features most likely formed when dust and gas that had previously escaped the dying star were eroded by a forceful, hot stellar wind. Astronomers now suspect that these blobs may be remnants of a disk that surrounded the nebula's central white dwarf.

Lots of knots

The new observations could help uncover the forces that power this stellar wind. In the future, Ohnaka's team also intends to create maps at different depths in order to construct a 3D view of the star's stormy atmosphere.

Astronomers Image Surface of Antares

Orferve will be joined in the Foy by another Japanese raider in Stellar Wind. Dual-classic winner Camelot heads the European defence for Aidan O'Brien.

PLUS WEEK Mr Fixit's top [...]

Scientists have thought a dense stellar wind fueled the outburst and considered it the prototype for "supernova impostors," or shorter-lived eruptions that don't quite destroy a star.

Reflected glow lights up past: Visible echoes make sense of explosion from long ago

Another way Wolf-Rayet stars are said to form is when a massive star ejects its own hydrogen envelope in a strong stellar wind streaming with charged particles.

One-of-a-Kind Star Discovered, Nicknamed 'Nasty'

Planetary magnetospheres are 'bubbles' made of fields and plasma created by the shock between the stellar wind and the intrinsic magnetic field of the planet.

Magnetic environment of extrasolar moons revealed

This led to speculation that all low-mass stars go through a period of extremely rapid rotation and then gradually slow as their stellar wind carries away angular momentum....

April 1992