Binary stars – systems of two stars that orbit each other – abound in the universe. Rarer are quadruple systems, that is, two binary stars orbiting around the same center of gravity. But what curls the curl is what a group of English astronomers have discovered: a system made up of no less than five suns . It is located in the constellation Ursa Major, 115 light years from Earth-
This strange gang is made up of two couples and another lone star who has joined the group. The first stellar duo is what is called "binary in contact": they are so close that they even share an outer atmosphere. Their orbital period (the time it takes to complete one orbital cycle) is only six hours. The other pair is a "separate binary" since they are three million kilometers apart from each other.
The surprise has been to verify that a fifth star accompanies this separate binary. “ It is a truly exotic system . In principle, there is no problem for there are also planets orbiting these stars ”, said one of the authors of the finding, Markus Lohr, from the Open University (UK).
The discovery came after analyzing data from the SuperWASP project , made up of small cameras that map the entire sky every few minutes from the Canary Islands and South Africa.
