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Colliding-wind binary

Binary star system in which two massive stars emit powerful stellar winds

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The archetype of such a colliding-wind binary system is WR 140 (HD 193793), which consists of a 20 solar mass (M☉) Wolf-Rayet star orbiting about a 50 M☉, spectral class O4–5 main sequence star every 7.9 years. The high orbital eccentricity of the pair allows astronomers to observe changes in the colliding wind region as their separation varies. Another prominent example of a colliding-wind binary is thought to be Eta Carinae, one of the most luminous objects in the Milky Way galaxy. The first colliding-wind binary to be detected in the X-ray band outside the Milky Way galaxy was HD 5980, located in the Small Magellanic Cloud.

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