It is the first time in history that a phenomenon of this caliber has been observed . Thanks to new observations from the VLT telescope of the European Southern Observatory (ESO), an international team of astronomers has discovered the hottest and most massive binary system to date in which the two stars are so close to each other that not only they touch but share 30% of the matter of which they are made.
This strange and extreme double star system is VTS 352 and is located about 160,000 light years away in the Tarantula Nebula . Astronomers believe that the two stars, which orbit each other just over a day, will eventually merge to form a single rapidly rotating and possibly magnetic giant star – which could end up as one of the most energetic explosions in the universe – or perhaps a black hole. binary.
“If the stars are mixed well enough, the two remain compact and the VFTS 352 system will be able to prevent fusion. This would take the objects down a new evolutionary path that is completely different from the predictions of classical stellar evolution. In the case of VFTS 352, the components would likely end their lives as supernova explosions, forming a close binary system of black holes . An object of these characteristics would be an intense source of gravitational waves ”, says Selma de Mink, co-author of the study.
At the moment, they are so close to each other that their cores are barely 12 million kilometers apart and their surfaces have already built a bridge that connects them. Apart from having located this fatal star encounter, its specific details are also surprising: it is the most massive known binary system of its class, since the combined mass is about 57 times the mass of the Sun and, moreover, and of the system that it has the hottest components; not surprisingly, its surface temperatures exceed 40,000 º C.
Although they are not ‘vampire stars’, since both are almost identical in size, their behavior is being similar although in this case instead of absorbing matter from the one, both are sharing it. In this case, the young stars share almost 30% of their total matter.
“VFTS 352 is the best case so far of a massive and hot double star that exhibits this type of internal mixing. As such, it is a fascinating and important discovery , ”explains Leonardo A. Almeida, study leader.
The study has been published in The Astrophysical Journal .
