An international team of astrophysicists has managed to capture a unique event in astronomy : the birth of a quadruple star system in the constellation of Perseus that represents one of the 48 constellations of Ptolemy and is also one of the 88 modern constellations (and also where they come from the famous Perseids).
This incipient star system is formed by a still young and developing star and three gas clouds that are in the process of rapid condensation by gravitational forces. According to experts, each of these gas clouds whose space between them is more than 1,000 times the average distance between the Sun and the Earth, will eventually become a star in about 40,000 years.
However, this unusually fast-growing system is likely not to last long: “Star systems with more than three members are unstable and prone to interference . The most likely scenario is that the quadruple system will disintegrate and will only last a ‘short’ time ”, clarifies Jaime Pineda of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics and leader of the study.
Although this is a unique event for us, ” multiple star systems are very common in our galaxy, ” explains Michael Meyer, professor at the Institute for Astronomy at ETH Zurich. The reason we do not have more information about these events is because most scientists focus on the study of individual stars because it is simpler.
The finding has been published in the journal Nature .
