Nasa predicts super star merger
Tuesday, 29 May 2007 11:42
Artist's concept of the stars merging
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Two vast stars are set to merge into each other, creating one of the most massive stars in the universe, Nasa has predicted.
The two stars, known as the binary system LH54-425, lie in a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way 165,000 light-years from Earth.
Astronomers have named them as 'O stars' – the most massive and luminous types of stars in the universe – and they have a mass of 62 and 37 times the mass of our Sun.
As the stars age and swell they will begin to transfer substantial amounts of mass to each other, and, as they are so close to each other, are likely to merge into one star.
If they do then they could produce an extremely massive star like the biggest member of the Eta Carinae binary system. Eta Carinae is estimated to have a mass 100 times that of our Sun.
"The merger of two massive stars to make a single super star of over 80 suns could lead to an object like Eta Carinae, which might have looked like LH54-425 one million years ago," said scientist George Sonneborn.
"Finding stars this massive so early in their life is very rare. These results expand our understanding of the nature of very massive binaries, which was not well understood. The system will eventually produce a very energetic supernova."