English

The Ejecta Nebula Around the Wolf-Rayet Star WR 71

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena 2025-07-25 v1 Solar and Stellar Astrophysics

Abstract

We present deep Hα\alpha and [O III] images of the ejecta rich nebulosity associated with the suspected runaway and binary Wolf-Rayet star WR~71 (HD 143414). In Hα\alpha emission, the nebula appears as a crescent shaped, broken ring of clumpy emission some 9×139' \times 13' in angular size centered to the south and west of the WR star. At a Gaia estimated distance of 4.27 kpc, the nebula has physical dimensions of 11×1611 \times 16 pc making it one of the larger known ejecta rich WR ring nebulae. Our [O III] image also show considerable surrounding faint nebulosity much of which may be unrelated to the WR star. A comparison of the nebula's optical appearance with that seen in WISE 22 μ\mum data shows infrared coincidence with the nebula's brightest [O III] emission features. Deep Hα\alpha and [O III] images like those presented here suggests that new and substantially deeper imaging reconnaissance of WR star nebulae compared to earlier surveys may lead to additional WR ring nebula detections, thereby enhancing our understanding on the frequency and formation of WR ring nebulae.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2507.17946,
  title  = {The Ejecta Nebula Around the Wolf-Rayet Star WR 71},
  author = {Robert A. Fesen and Manuel C. Peitsch and Martin R. Pugh and Bray Falls and Marcel Drechsler},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2507.17946},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

Accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journal. 7 pages, 5 figures, 1 table

R2 v1 2026-07-01T04:16:07.876Z