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| A visualization of the quadruple-star system HD 98800, 150 light-years away in the constellation TW Hydrae. (Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA) |
Three massive, brilliant starts are caught dancing with one another by their gravitational forces and are illuminated by their combined luminosity against the black veil of space. These two flaming gas balls are closely around one another as they complete their respective orbits in time with one Earth day. At the same time, the third star of the show slowly circles the duo, illuminating their brilliant performance.
A study published in June's issue of Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society describes specifics about the cosmic condition.
The close-quarter binary stars inside our galaxy have a total mass of around 12 times that of our sun, while the wide-field galaxy surrounding them has a massive 16 times our sun's mass. To put this into perspective, it would take more than 330,000 Earth to equal one solar mass, which makes up 99.98 % of the mass of our solar system. Simply, these outstanding ballerinas are enormous.
Due to the system's extreme brightness, a group of amateur astronomers identified it while poring over data from NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. At first, they believed it to be an aberration. They alerted expert astronomers, who confirmed that it was the rare triple star system.
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