Birth of a star quartet
Wednesday, February 11, 2015 - 14:30
in Astronomy & Space
Astrophysicists have witnessed a unique event: for the first time, researchers have discovered the formation of a quadruple star system from widely separated fragments of a filamentary gas cloud in the Perseus constellation. The star system consists of a young star still in an early development phase and three gas clouds which are rapidly condensing by gravitational forces. According the astrophysicists’ calculations, each gas cloud will develop into a star in 40,000 years. The stars may be relatively small and only reach around one-tenth the mass of our sun. The space between the individual stars amounts to more than a thousand times the average distance between the sun and the earth.