Jakarta –
Astronomical researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark for the first time discovered a unique system of the Solar System. There is a world that has 3 suns orbiting each other.
Quoted from detikInet who launched India Today, in the results of his research, Alejandro Vigna-Gomez of the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen said that this world has two binary stars orbiting each other and a larger star orbiting both. This world they call HD 98800 which is located 150 light years in the constellation TW Hydrae.
Binary stars orbit each other in one day, much like Earth completes one rotation in 24 hours. The two Suns, combined, weigh 12 times the mass of our Sun.
In fact, astronomers speculate there are four stars in this system. Until three other Suns devour the fourth.
“As far as we know, this is the first of its kind ever detected. We know a lot about tertiary star systems, but they are usually significantly less massive. The massive stars in these triple systems are very close to each other. On the other hand, it is a compact system,” said Alejandro.
Alejandro is collaborating with his research partner Bin Liu from China to find the answer to the question of how this unique combination of binary stars and massive rotating stars formed.
Researchers are baffled by the existence of a third star in this system, which weighs 16 times the mass of our Sun with an inner circular orbit that circles the two stars six times each year.
This system, due to its high brightness, was first discovered by a community of amateur astronomers, who took data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite observatory. At first, they thought it was an anomaly and alerted professional astronomers who later confirmed it was a unique triple star system.
The two researchers then coded the data and ran 100,000 iterations on a supercomputer to assess the most likely outcome of this scenario.
“Now we have a model of the most likely scenario for this unique system. But a model alone is not enough. And there are two ways we can prove or elaborate our theory of this formation. One is to study the system in detail and the other to make statistical analyzes of the stellar population, ” said Alejandro.
“If we go into the system in detail, we have to rely on the expertise of an astronomer. We have already made preliminary observations, but we still have to look at the data and make sure we interpret it well,” explains Alejandro.
The two researchers are currently using telescopes and observatories scattered around the world to look at this unique system.
(ral/mso)
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