Abstract
The prototypical carbon Mira IRC+10 216 is an Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) star suffering from strong mass loss (several 10-5 M⊙/yr; Loup et al. 1993) which has led to an almost complete obscuration of the star by dust. Due to the high mass-loss rate, long period of P = 649 d and carbon-rich chemistry of the dust-shell, IRC +10 216 is obviously in a very advanced stage of its AGB evolution. High-resolution near-infrared imaging of IRC +10 216 has revealed that on sub-arcsecond scales (100 mas) its dust shell is clumpy, bipolar, and changing on a time scale of only ~1 yr (Weigelt et al. 1997, 1998, Haniff & Buscher 1998, Osterbart et al. 2000, Tuthill et al. 2000). Since most dust shells around AGB stars are known to be spherically symmetric, whereas most proto-planetary nebulae (PPN) show an axisymmetric geometry (Olofsson 1996) it appears likely that IRC+10 216 has already entered the transition phase to the PPN stageKeywordsAsymptotic Giant BranchCarbon StarSpecial Astrophysical ObservatoryDust ShellCompact ComponentThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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