As 304: Does IUE Discover the Youngest Symbiotic Star?

The nature and evolutionary status of the hot component of symbiotic stars is still a matter of debate. Given the wide range of displayed properties, a homogeneous survey of a significant sample of objects seems a pre-requisite of any investigation aimed at gaining a unified view of these interacting binaries. For this reason we are currently carrying out a specific program to expand the sample of symbiotic stars observed by the IUE satellite (Munari & Buson 1991, 1992, 1993a, b).