Two Stars Caught Fusing Into One

I just happened across this article and wanted to share. I have wondered what would happen if two stars orbit so closely to one another that they merge.

Scientists have directly observed for the first time the merger of two closely orbiting stars. Experts have suggested for decades that such stars — which whirl so close to each other that their outer layers actually touch — should ultimately commingle. The new work, by Romuald Tylenda of the Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center in Toruń, Poland and collaborators, catches the stars in the act.

Trolling through more than 2,000 observations taken from 2002 to 2010, he and his colleagues found light variations that suggest V1309 Sco was originally a contact binary star, a just-touching pair of stars circling each other about every 1.4 days. Over time, this periodic variation shortened as the stars’ outer layers combined to cocoon both orbs in a single envelope.

At that point the object got brighter, its light doubling every 19 days until late August 2008, when it brightened by a factor of 300 over 10 days. V1309 Sco’s final burst occurred that month when the stars’ cores finally merged and energy from their combined spins erupted outward. It became 10,000 times brighter than its original luminosity and more than 30,000 times brighter than the sun, then quickly faded away over the course of a few months to roughly its original brightness.

www.sciencenews.org...

The article doesn't mention whether this binary system is visible to the naked eye, but it could explain at least one instance of ATSers claiming to witness a star suddenly becoming brighter than it previously was.

reply to post by Aggie Man
The wonders of the Universe never fail to amaze me.

That would be something to see, I hope that they are able to find a way to observe and then share the information!
Now why do I suddenly feel like a cosmic voyeur?

Yeah! Great post! Star sex is awesome!

Seriously though, I love finding this kind of stuff on ATS. Keep posting it...the universe hasn't failed to amaze me yet.

A merged binary star system sometimes results in the formation of a black hole since the heavy mass smaller star now has fuel that it previously burnt up. Results in the little one eating the big one, but they don't actually 'merge', but I will admit that I have yet to read of two stars colliding, (I'm sure it must happen).

Maybe I should read the link provided in the case that this article IS about a stellar collision.

reply to post by Aggie Man


So basically NASA spotted two Stars having sex?

reply to post by alldaylong


the universe is an amazing and mind boggling place i couldnt agree more with you