Images of 'farewell kisses' of two super big, super hot stars

VFTS 352 is a binary star system located in the Tarantula nebula, about 180,000 light-years from Earth. It is one of the most intense starburst regions in the cluster of Local galaxies, and is the largest region in the Local group. A special feature of this system is how stars touch each other, sharing with each other 30% of their material and creating a huge amount of heat.

Images of kisses of 2 super big, super hot stars

According to the researchers, two stars went into each other's orbit for less than a day, approaching each other and being able to collide with each other - called "overcontact binary" . At this point, the mind of the two stars is only about 12 million kilometers apart - it sounds very big but in astronomy this is a very close distance, especially for two big stars.

The sight of the two stars, 160,000 light-years away, rushes into each other - a disastrous "farewell kiss" that leads to both deaths.

The total mass of VFTS 352 is 52 times greater than our Sun and at the same time, their surface temperature is much larger: up to 40,000 degrees Celsius (while the Sun's surface temperature is only about 5,500 degrees. C). Co-author of the study and photograph, astronomer Leonardo A. Almeida at the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, said: " VFTS 352 is the best case ever found for a pair of hot, giant stars. This is a really interesting and important photo. "

In fact, the distance between these stars is extremely rare and difficult to find for scientists. The reason is that the time when the two stars are so fiercely close together does not last long. In this case, scientists believe that the fate of VFTS 352 can end in two ways.

Snapshot from clip.

"If it continues to spin so quickly, it could create one of the supernova explosions and end the life line. At that time, a star will orbit the other star, keeping 2 the star is together, eventually collapsing into one another, forming a giant star that spins so fast that it collapses into the mind under its own gravity, or at the same time appears an interesting phenomenon. taste: create a pair of black holes ".

"In the other case, if after the collision and the two stars still retain a certain part of the body, the VFTS 352 system will avoid the lump sum. Maybe this will lead to an evolutionary path. new stars, quite different from the evolution that people think so far, but in the case of VFTS 352, the first plan will take place. "

Dual star VFTS 352 video render.