Found a quadruple star system

HD 98800 surprised astronomers with the number of stars and the orientation of the protoplanetary disk.

There is only one star in our solar system. But very often there are systems in which there are two and even three stars. The HD 98800 stellar system, located 150 light-years away, simply puts everyone behind the belt: there are four stars in it at once. An article about an unusual find was published in the journal Nature.

HD 98800 was detected with an ALMA telescope located in the Chilean Atacama Desert. It was quite difficult to look at all four stars, as they are hidden by a protoplanetary disk. This four is divided into two pairs: one in the very center of the system, and one – on its edge.

Another oddity of the system is exactly how the protoplanetary disk is located. Usually, its orientation coincides with the plane of rotation of the parent stars, but in the case of HD 98800, the protoplanetary disk is located almost perpendicular to this plane. If there are planets in the system, the climate on them will be very unusual.

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x