Press Release

NAS RA V. Ambartsumian Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory (BAO)
Press release 04.12.2023

ONE DAY, TWO INTERNATIONAL SEMINARS

On December 4, the Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory hosted 2 international seminars. The invited speakers were Eduard Vorobyov and Tamara Molyarova from the Institute of Physics, Southern Federal University (Rostov-on-Don, Russia).

Eduard Vorobyov’s talk was devoted to resolving the mystery of FU Orionis. He described that FU-Orion-type objects (FUors) are characterized by short (tens of years) episodic outbursts, during which their luminosity increases by orders of magnitude. A possible cause of such flares may be a gravitational perturbation during close encounters in young star-forming regions. Numerical simulations show that to generate a burst with characteristics close to those of FUors, a fairly close flyby with a periastron no larger than several tens of AU is required. Learn more here.

As for Tamara Molyarova, her talk was dedicated to Molecular signatures of past FU Ori outbursts. She noted that The scenario of episodic accretion suggests that luminosity outbursts happen to youngest stellar objects, but are relatively short compared with the long quiescent periods between them. Read further.

Meline Asryan