(NLDO) - 5,000 light years away from Earth, three objects are stuck together and are about to turn into a terrifying "space monster".
A team led by astrophysicist Veselin Kostov from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center identified TIC 290061484, a complex system consisting of a central core of three bright objects nestled within a narrow ring just the size of Mercury's orbit.
According to an article published in the scientific journal The Astrophysical Journal, the cluster of objects is three gravitationally bound stars, discovered from data from NASA's TESS telescope.
The close proximity between them - with two of the stars almost stuck together - set a new record.
The graphic shows three giant objects that have just been discovered orbiting each other at close range, compared in size to the Sun (yellow) and the circle is the orbit of Mercury, the planet closest to the Sun - Photo: NASA
The two nearly conjoined stars have masses 6.85 and 6.11 times that of the Sun, respectively, with orbital periods of just 1.8 days.
The third star has a mass 7.9 times that of the Sun and orbits the central pair with a period of 24.5 days.
This easily broke the previous record of three stars orbiting each other with an orbital period of 33 days.
That's not all. The trio appears to have another companion, which scientists speculate is a fourth star, orbiting them at a much greater distance.
This fourth star is estimated to have a mass of about 6.01 times that of the Sun, orbiting the aforementioned fearsome trio with an orbital period of up to 3,200 days.
In it, a trio of stars "stuck" together are on their way to a certain collision. This event will cause them to explode together as a supernova.
Ultimately, what remains of all three will form one of the most terrifying objects in the universe, a neutron star, in about 20 million years.
Most other neutron stars are the remnants of once-collapsed giant stars. So a neutron star made up of three different stars would be a very rare object.
It would be a terrifying neutron star, because each of the three stars in the trio is massive.
Source: https://nld.com.vn/phat-hien-ky-luc-3-vat-the-ngoai-hanh-tinh-sap-nuot-nhau-19624100709000826.htm
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