Gas stream in Algol

Abstract

Additional absorption features in the red wings of the Mg II resonance lines near 2800 A are found in observations of Algol made from the Copernicus satellite. The absorption features were clearly seen only during a part of the primary eclipse, in the phase interval 0.90-0.03. The observations are interpreted as being produced by a stream of matter flowing from Algol B in the direction of Algol A. The measured Doppler shifts of the features give the value of 150 km/s as the characteristic velocity of matter in the stream. The mass transfer connected with the stream is estimated to be of the order of 10 to the -13th power solar mass per year.