A Lifetime of Influence: Abstracts, Talks, and Posters
 

Upcoming Periastron Passages of WR 140 and Eta Car

Michael F. Corcoran, CRESST/USRA/GSFC

Ted Gull, GSFC

Kenji Hamaguchi, CRESST/UMBC/GSFC

John Hillier, University of Pittsburgh

Anthony Moffat, University of Montreal

Atsuo Okazaki, Hokkai-Gakuen University

Stan Owocki, Bartol

Ross Parkin, University of Leeds

Julian Pittard, University of Leeds

Andy Pollock, ESA

Chris Russell, Bartol

The International Year of Astronomy begins with the periastron passes of the two most massive, high eccentricity, long period colliding wind binaries, WR 140 (= HD193793) and Eta Carinae in January 2009. These colliding wind binaries are key objects for probing phenomena associated with mass loss from evolved stars in the upper HR diagram. Despite large differences in their periods (7.9 years for WR 140 and 5.5 years for Eta Car) both stars will undergo periastron passage within weeks of each other, offering a rare opportunity for astronomers to almost simultaneously compare observational effects on the stellar winds as the companion stars skim through the inner winds of the primary stars. Observing campaigns from infrared through X-ray energies have been organized to probe mechanisms of dust formation, changes in free-free emission and the state of the hot shocked gas in the wind-wind collision zone. We discuss these observing campaigns, efforts at 3-D modeling of the systems, and report the status of observations already obtained.