NASA's Spitzer Discovers Blinking Star System Surrounded by 'Hula Hoop'

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has made an unusual discovery. It's found a young stellar system that "blinks" every 93 days. Composed of three young stars, the system is surrounded by a "hula hoop" disk of material left over from the star formation process.

The system itself is called YLW 16 and was first discovered when Spitzer spotted infrared light emitted by the warmed gas and dust in the disk that still swathes the young stars. The two inner stars of the system whirl around each other in a stellar dance and occasionally peek out from the disk of material around them. This hoop of material actually appears to be misaligned from the central star pair. This is probably due to the gravitational presence of the third star at the periphery of the system.

So what causes this system to "blink?" The entire system cycles through bright and faint phases as the central stars peek out from the disk of material whirling around them. This causes a "blinking" phenomenon. In a few billion years, it's likely that this disk of material will help spawn planets in the star system.

This isn't the only blinking star system that astronomers have found, though. This is the fourth to be discovered and the second in the same star-forming region Rho Ophiuchus. It's possible that these systems are, in fact, more common that scientists once thought. In theory, these systems could host planets, called circumbinary planets, with two "suns."

"These blinking systems offer natural probes of the binary and circumbinary planet formation process," said Peter Plavchan, a scientist involved in the research, in a news release.

These blinking star systems with warped disks offer researchers a new way to study how planets form in these environments. They can record how light is absorbed by the planet-forming disks during the bright and faint phases of "blinking." This could allow them to learn a little bit more about how these systems are created and, in turn, a little bit more about the universe.

The findings are published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.