Research Gallery > Interstellar and Circumstellar Medium
Research Gallery
Interstellar and Circumstellar Medium
| Schematic chemical structure of the circumstellar shell of an AGB star |
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Image Credit: Kemper, Francisca
The top half of the plot represents the chemistry in an
oxygen-rich environment (C/O < 1), and the bottom half of the figure
shows the carbon-rich counterpart.
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| The logarithmic scale at the bottom shows the distance and temperature to the center of the star. Several distinct zones can be identified, namely the molecular formation region and the dust formation region, where conditions are governed by the density and the stellar radiation field, and the outermost region where the chemistry is dominated by the impinging interstellar radiation. |
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