Rare Triple Star System Found By Scientists

We live in a single-star solar system - what ensures we don't freeze to death is our Sun. However, the universe has other star systems - some with double, and others, more rare triple or quadruple. Scientists are still trying to learn more about how they form, which is why it comes at the most opportune time that they discovered a disk of gas and dust turning into three stars.

Astronomers have two proposed origins regarding multiple star systems. As noted by IFL Science, the first theory involves a breakup of the loose cloud material that went on to become stars, while the second theory talks of circumstellar disks that are on the way of becoming stars - but fragment and create dense pockets to go on and be separate celestial bodies.

Dr. John Tobin led the team from the University of Oklahoma when they witnessed this late-stage breakup with the help of the Atacama Large Millimeter/sumbillimeter Array (ALMA) and the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA). Nature reported that the triple star system has been called the L1448 IRS3B, and is about 750 light-years-away, in the constellation of Perseus.

The star system has two protostars with a combined mass similar to our own Sun. They are at 61 astronomical units (AU) apart, which is about double the distance between the Sun and Neptune. A less massive star lies 183 AU away from the protostars also exist, although at a lower mass. Still, the smaller star is much brighter at the wavelengths that ALMA collects.

Dr. Kaitlin Kratter of the University of Arizona also added in a statement that the whole system is young - maybe less that 150,000 years old, with the largest star breaking away from the other two about 10,000 to 20,000 years ago.

What's especially rare about the L1448 IRS3B however, is that it is part of a larger system with three more protostars - so technically, any planet that will form in the system will have a complex gravitational relationship with six Suns.