An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics

The most famous young stellar object, the prototype of → T Tauri stars which is located in the Taurus-Auriga star forming region at a distance of about 140 pc. T Tauri is about 2.4 solar masses and about 7 million years old. Complex structures of shock heated gas indicative of outflows surround the star, both on sub-arcsecond and larger scales. The → accretion rate is estimated to be (3-6) x 10^-8 solar masses per year. T Tauri has a companion (about 0.7 arcseconds apart) which is invisible in the optical and has been observed to be strongly variable in infrared. It is an intermediate mass
young star (2.5 solar masses) surrounded by a → circumstellar disk. This star is itself a → close binary, the component being a low mass star (0.6 solar masses) also surrounded by circumstellar material.

See also: T, letter of alphabet; Tauri genitive of → Taurus.