Wiley, Monthly Notice- Royal Astronomical Society -Letters-
DOI: 10.1111/j.1745-3933.2008.00561.x
Full text: Download
We report the discovery of the first known symbiotic star in IC10, a starburst galaxy belonging to the Local Group, at a distance of ~750kpc. The symbiotic star was identified during a survey of emission-line objects. It shines at V = 24.62+-0.04, V - R_C = 2.77+-0.05 and R_C - I_C = 2.39+-0.02 and suffers from E(B-V) = 0.85+-0.05 reddening. The spectrum of the cool component well matches that of solar neighborhood M8III giants. The observed emission lines belong to Balmer series, [SII], [NII] and [OIII]. They suggest a low electronic density, negligible optical depth effects and 35,000K < T_eff < 90,000K for the ionizing source. The spectrum of the new symbiotic star in IC10 is an almost perfect copy of that of Hen 2-147, a well known Galactic symbiotic star and Mira. Comment: 5 pages including 3 figures. MNRAS Letters accepted. Also available at http://pessoais.ov.ufrj.br/denise/