Science Focus
original post »Many of the stars in our galaxy don't orbit alone; systems of two, three, or even more stars are common. These have provided us important windows into the Universe in general. Type-Ia supernovae, which we use to measure cosmic distances, are triggered when two orbiting stars collide. Pulsars get sped up by the gas of a companion star until they rotate every few milliseconds. And changes in a star's motion can reveal an otherwise hidden companion, such as a stellar-mass black hole.
Despite their importance, however, we haven't really learned much about the formation of multi-star systems. While it was once proposed that they formed when one star gravitationally captured a second, surveys show that groups of orbiting bodies are more common when stars are young. This suggests that these systems form together before gravitational interactions kick some of the members out of the group. The challenge with imaging their formation is that stars form very quickly in astronomical terms, taking on the order of a hundred thousand years.
Now, researchers have been able to image one of these systems in the process of formation. By looking at a star forming field in the Perseus region, they've been able to spot a single protostar that's accompanied by three additional condensing regions, all of which should reach the protostar stage within the next 40,000 years.
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