Binary star systems actually resemble twins because their stars are usually very similar. But the HD 148937 system does not meet these expectations at all, because one of the two massive stars is much younger than the other and is magnetic. ESO's Abigail Frost and her team discovered why this happens through observations and measurements of the structure: As they explained in “Science”.it was once a triplet from which two stars later merged – and from it emerged the extraordinary Dragon Egg Nebula.
“A nebula surrounding two massive stars is rare, and we had a real feeling that something wonderful was bound to happen in this system. “And when we looked at the data, the excitement grew.” Frost says in a statement from ESO. In the system, 3,800 light-years from Earth, two stellar giants orbit their common center of mass in a 26-year orbit, with one star about 30 times larger than the Sun and the other 26.6 times larger. At the end of their days, this will be enough for black holes to form.
The larger of the two stars is magnetar, which is unusual because this doesn't really happen with suns of this size, but this piqued Frost and Co.'s interest. The team therefore analyzed a multi-year data series from the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope and archived data from the 2.2-meter MPG/ESO telescope. The participants discovered that the two stars have different ages, which should not be the case with these cosmic twins. While the age of the larger star is 2.7 million years, the age of the younger star is 4.1 million years, which is a big difference because the stars must have formed at the same time due to their proximity.
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