Couples cause trouble in the universe

When twin stars revolve around each other, they can alter the orbits of the surrounding planets and cause terrible collisions.

Illustration of a binary star system. (Photo: moviecodec.com).

The binary star system is made up of two stars revolving around each other. Professor Jeremy Drake from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said that the erratic motion of binary star systems could cause planets to destroy each other with terrible collisions .

The BBC said Drake and colleagues used the Spitzer space telescope to track a pair of twin stars whose orbit is only 3.2 million kilometers apart, approximately 2 percent of the distance between the earth and the sun. These stars have a life span of about one billion years. Every few days they turn around around each other. Extremely strong magnetic fields between the two stars make them move closer together. This result causes gravity changes, breaking the orbit of other planets. Planets may collide with each other after their orbits are disordered.

Illustration of collision between two planets around twin stars. (Photo: geology.com).

The team found evidence of interplanetary collisions. These are the infrared rays of hot dust disks with temperatures close to molten lava around some twin stars. Often such dust layers will disappear when the stars mature. Their existence in this case caused astronomers to think that interplanetary collisions created new layers of dust.

" Such collisions are likely to become popular. Theoretically, around such stars, there are likely to exist planets with the right environment for life. So, if unfortunately There are living creatures on those planets, the collision will destroy them, "Drake said.

The results of the study are published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.