R Coronae Borealis star

R Coronae Borealis star

[¦är kə¦rō‚nē ‚bȯr·ē′al·əs ‚stär]
(astrophysics)
A rare type of irregular variable star which has long periods of maximum brightness followed by a sudden, unpredictable reduction in brightness of several magnitudes, and a slower, sometimes erratic return to the original brightness.
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
References in periodicals archive ?
Recently astronomers used the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope Interferometer to map two large, infrared-emitting smoke clouds as close as 30 astronomical units from RY Sagittarii, the second-brightest R Coronae Borealis star in the sky.
Stars that smoke
The stellar classes discussed in detail at the conference include R Coronae Borealis stars, extreme helium stars, Wolf-Rayet central stars of planetary nebulae, white dwarfs, and helium-rich subdwarf O and B stars.
Hydrogen-deficient stars; proceedings
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