ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Astron. Space Sci.
Sec. Astrochemistry
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fspas.2025.1657875
This article is part of the Research TopicChemical Diversity of Circumstellar Envelopes Around Evolved StarsView all 8 articles
The Unique Chemistry in the Envelopes of Massive Stars
Provisionally accepted
- University of Arizona, Tucson, United States
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The envelopes of evolved massive stars (M ~ 9−40 M⊙) on the Red Supergiant (RSG) Branch offer a unique situation to examine extreme circumstellar chemistry. Unlike their counterparts on the Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB), these envelopes undergo energetic and highly-directional mass loss events, which distort a mostly spherical stellar wind. The envelope is subject to isolated shocks, grain destruction and dredge-up, all which generate a very complex chemical environment. Molecule formation involves thermodynamic equilibrium, localized shock heating, and varied elemental enrichment, frequently on timescales of a few hundred years. In this energized, oxygen-rich material, refractory oxides are synthesized, including AlO, PO, AlOH, TiO and VO, as well as metal halides (NaCl, AlCl, KCl, and AlF), but often with varying spatial distributions. High resolution imaging of molecular emission in the classic RSG, VY Canis Majoris (VY CMa) has given chemical and physical insight into these unique objects, but further studies are clearly needed.
Keywords: astrochemistry, circumstellar envelopes, Red Supergiant Stars, VY Canis Majoris, NML Cygnus, interstellar molecules, Molecular abundances
Received: 01 Jul 2025; Accepted: 08 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Ziurys. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Lucy M, Ziurys, lziurys@email.arizona.edu
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