Baby Twin Stars Reveal More About the Birth of Binary Stars

Scientists have spotted the spiral arms of molecular gas around "baby twin" stars-or binary protostars. The new observations reveal a bit more about the mechanism of the birth and growth of binary stars, which could further future studies.

The researchers first spotted the forming stars with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). Although binary stars are relatively common in the universe, our understanding of their formation has been relatively limited. That's why it's crucial to study more of these stars in order to learn a bit more about them and, potentially, how they might form planets.

The twin star system is called L1551 NE and is located about 460 light-years away. While observing the system, the researchers focused on a gas component associated with each binary star and a disk surrounding both stars, called a circumbinary disk. For the first time, the researchers succeeded in imaging the detailed structures of the circumbinary disk, which consists of a southern U-shaped feature and northern emission protrusions pointing to the northwest and northeast.

"Our ALMA observation has revealed gas feeding to the baby twin stars from the surrounding disk," said Tomoaki Matsumoto, one of the researchers, in a news release. "Our ALMA results match with our theoretical prediction remarkably accurately."

The findings reveal a bit more about how these binary stars form. This, in turn, could help researchers understand a bit more about binary stars that have fully formed and may host planets.

The findings are published in The Astrophysical Journal.

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