Smithsonian astronomer T.K. Sridharan (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) and his colleagues have managed a rare feat. Using infrared light, they have photographed the youngest binary star system ever known. The age of these twins is estimated to be roughly 100,000 years, which is nothing compared to the million of years that these stars live. Om the same picture, reproduced here, we see a circumstellar disk, which is a crucial find too.
The object is poetically named IRAS 20126+4104 and is located more than 5,000 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. This object is a massive star, weighed at around 10 times the mass of our Sun. The circumstellar disk is estimated at one tenth of a solar mass. It may seem low, but it’s enough to form roughly 100 Jupiter-sized planets. It extends for 850 Astronomical Units (one AU equals the average Sun – Earth distance, roughly 149 000 000 km), which can be compared to 20 times the orbit of Pluto.
The presence of such a disk in a double system hints that the physical process of stellar formation is the same for single stars that in binary systems. It might lead on better insight on planet formation and better physical models for such systems. Dr. Sridharan said that the next step in studying this intriguing twin system is to get higher-resolution observations using adaptive optics or interferometry. Such data will yield a better estimate of the companion’s mass and a detailed profile of the disk.
You can ask “Why is that discovery important?”. And it’s a valid question, as for most of the research led in astrophysics (but that’s an whole other debate). A detailed image of such a young binary system will allow astronomers to observe directly the early stages of star formation, in the case of a high-mass binary star system. Conclusions drawn from research on these young systems will allow to validate (or negate, but nobody hopes this) the scientific model for star formation.
You can access the paper written by Dr. Sridharan and his team composed of S.J. Williams and G.A. Fuller on arXiv.
The original press release can be read on the Harvard – Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics news wire.
September 20th, 2005 | General Science