The extreme binary star system breaks the record

Until now, it was only known theoretically that such a star system must exist. get it now researchers Like this for the first time binary star system Discover.

LP 413-53AB It consists of two stars. Both are called Dwarves are absolutely amazing. Compared to our Sun, this one has very little mass and is noticeably cooler. Its light in the first place infrared rangeThis is why it is not visible to the naked eye. However, they are the most common form of star in the known universe.

The orbital period is only 20.5 hours

The special thing about LP 413-53AB is that it has two stars They are extremely close to each other lying down. Therefore, at first it was thought that he was just a star. On closer examination, it turns out that there are 2. They are so close together that they only have an orbital period 20.5 hours to have. If a star were a planet, its year would be shorter than a day on Earth.

The distance between the two stars is only one percent of the distance between the Sun and the Earth. This is unusual because the star system is estimated to be approx billion years estimated. At a young age, about a million years old, the stars were so big that they overlapped.

The researchers suspect that the stars have moved toward each other over time. Another theory is that there was a third star that disappeared from the system, which somehow caused the other two stars to move together.

New record

Anyway, due to the small distance between the stars, the LP is 413-53AB New record holder. It is a binary star system with the supercooled dwarfs closest to each other. Previously, 3 other star systems were discovered whose orbits were classified as “short”. These are relatively young, less than 40 million years old. The system’s shortest orbit so far is three times longer than that of LP 413-53AB.

“These systems are very rare,” he says. Chris Theisen, a co-author of the study from the University of San Diego: “But we don’t know if they are so rare because there are only a few of them or just because we only found a few.” Due to the discovery of LP 413-53AB data and evidence to search more specifically for such systems.

habitable outer planets

Supercool dwarfs are generally exciting to astronomers. Since it is colder, so is the habitable zone outer planets Move to a shorter orbit. Therefore, by better understanding and tracking this type of star, it is possible to discover more exoplanets in our neighborhood that are potentially friendly to life.

This is not the case with LP 413-53AB. The habitable zone is located in the orbit of the stars. According to the researchers, this makes it impossible for habitable exoplanets to form there.