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Observation of a Lunar Occultation of T Tauri

1996; IOP Publishing; Volume: 456; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1086/309860

1538-4357

M. Simon, A. J. Longmore, M. A. Shure, A. M. Smillie,

Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies

We observed the 1994 December 16 (UT) lunar occultation of the binary system T Tau in the infrared K and L' bands. T Tau N, the visible light star, and T Tau S, the IR luminous companion, appeared unresolved along the direction of the occultation. At L', both objects are smaller than 3 AU. At K, T Tau N and S are smaller than 1 AU. The natural interpretation is that both components are stellar and that the extinction along our line of sight to T Tau S is greater than that to T Tau N. At the time of the occultation, the K-band flux of T Tau S had decreased to nearly the value it had before the flare that began in the late 1980s while the L'-band flux was still elevated; this flux decrease with time supports the suggestion published by Ghez et al. in 1991 that T Tau S experienced a FU Orionis-like outburst.