Recently there have been many star systems observed that have planets forming, or else are young star systems that are in the process of a star forming. Now astronomers are seeing for the first time young stellar objects forming a multiple-star system.
For the first time, astronomers are seeing what causes a star system to develop into a multi-star system. This is with the observation of such a star system breaking up to form a multi-star system. The observation has been done using the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) and the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA).
Stars first start out as clouds of dust and gas. As they begin to form, the material begins to collapse into it, becoming into a dense core which gets even more material. Slowly the material rotates and forms a disk around the core. As more material goes to the core, it begins to have temperature and pressure rise at its center. This then begins a thermonuclear reaction, and the star soon shines.
Multiple star systems form when the disk around it begin to fragment. Many stars have companion stars, which is the result of the disk fragmenting. Some star systems have these companion stars close, while others are farther apart, according to Phys Org. The wider star systems have larger disk clouds that have fragmented.
"This new work directly supports the conclusion that there are two mechanisms that produce multiple star systems," explained John Tobin of the University of Oklahoma and Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands. He said that these mechanisms involve the fragmentation of circumstellar disk and the fragmentation of the larger dust cloud.
The three young star that's being observed is in a three star-system called L1448 IRS3B, which is in the constellation Perseus. It is about 750 lightyears from the Earth. The central star is 61 and 183 times the Earth-Sun distance from the other two, as Science Daily reports.
Kaitlin Kratter from the University of Arizona said that the system is young, and could possibly be less than 150,000 years old. The disk is still unstable and the stars are also young. The youngest star is said to be only 10,000 to 20,000 years old. With this young star system, it has been observed that young stellar objects are forming multi-star systems. As astronomers continue to observe it, Cygnus A has also been observed to be different from other active galaxies.
