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Wolf-Rayet stars are evolved, hot, massive stars, that exhibit high mass-loss caused by strong stellar winds. Consequently, they are short-lived, and therefore rare. The surface composition is usually mainly helium based with characteristic broad emission lines of carbon, nitrogen or oxygen. They usually have thermal radio emitters from free-free emission but could be also have nonthermal radio emitters. From this nonthermal radio emission it is possible to determine the luminosity, spectrum, time dependence, spatial distribution and polarization.
They were discovered in 1867 by French astronomers Charles Wolf and Georges Rayet.
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