The nearby star α Centauri A has a relatively cool layer above its visible surface and beneath its superhot corona, one of several characteristics it shares with the Sun.
A team led by René Liseau at Chalmers University of Technology in Onsala, Sweden, looked at α Centauri A in far-infrared wavelengths with the Herschel Space Observatory and a ground-based telescope. They compared the star's light with a model of the stellar atmosphere to show a minimum temperature of 3,920 kelvin just above the surface — the first minimum observed on a Sun-like star.
Knowledge that this cool layer exists in other stars could help astronomers to understand how widespread such stellar atmospheric phenomena are.
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Hot star with a cool layer. Nature 495, 9 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/495009e
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/495009e
