National Radio Astronomy Observatory | 2015 Feb 11
For the first time, astronomers have caught a multiple-star system in the beginning stages of its formation, and their direct observations of this process give strong support to one of several suggested pathways to producing such systems.[attachment=0]B5_nrao[1].jpg[/attachment]
The scientists looked at a cloud of gas some 800 light-years from Earth, homing in on a core of gas that contains one young protostar and three dense condensations that they say will collapse into stars in the astronomically-short period of 40,000 years. Of the eventual four stars, the astronomers predict that three may become a stable triple-star system. ...
The scientists used the VLA and GBT, along with the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) in Hawaii, to study a dense core of gas called Barnard 5 (B5) in a region where young stars are forming in the constellation Perseus. This object was known to contain one young forming star.
When the research team led by Pineda used the VLA to map radio emission from methane molecules, they discovered that filaments of gas in B5 are fragmenting, and the fragments are beginning to form into additional stars that will become a multiple-star system. ...
The condensations in B5 that will produce stars now range from one-tenth to more than one-third the mass of the Sun, the scientists said. Their separations will range from 3,000 to 11,000 times the Earth-Sun distance.
The astronomers analyzed the dynamics of the gas condensations and predict that, when they form into stars, they will form a stable system of an inner binary, orbited by a more-distant third star. The fourth star, they suggest, will not long remain part of the system. ...
Astronomers Catch a Multiple Star System in the Process of Forming
University of Massachusets | 2015 Feb 11
Astronomers catch ‘Tatooine’ multiple-star system as it forms
University of Manchester | 2015 Feb 11
The formation of a quadruple star system with wide separation - Jaime E. Pineda et al
- Nature 518(7538) 213 (12 Feb 2015) DOI: 10.1038/nature14166