University of Alicante Two stars have been observed approaching and will end up merging into a supermassive star

Alicante, 25 November 2014

Most of the stars in our galaxy have been formed in binary or multiple system, most of which are "eclipsing", ie. consisting of two or more stars which, observed from Earth, undergo eclipses and mutual transits because of their orbital plane facing our planet. One such system is the eclipsing binary MY Camelopardalis (MY Cam). The journal Astronomy & Astrophysics (A&A) published an article on the most massive star known with the results of observations at the Calar Alto Observatory (Almería) signed by astronomers at the University of Alicante, the Centre Astrobiology the Superior Council (CAB-CSIC) Scientific Research and the Canaries’ Astrophysics Institute (IAC), along with amateur astronomers.

This article concludes that MY Cam is the most observed binary massive star observed whose components, two stars of spectral type O (very hot blue and bright stars), 38 and 32 times the Sun's mass, are still on the main sequence and are very close to each other, with an orbital period of less than 1.2 days, ie, the shortest in this type of stars orbital period.

By combining these last two points we can observe that the binary was virtually formed as it is now, ie the stars were almost in contact at the time they were formed.

The expected development is the merger of the two components into a single object over 60 solar masses before any of them have time to evolve significantly. Hence, these results demonstrate the viability of some theoretical models suggesting that most massive stars are formed by merging less massive stars.

That will be interesting to keep an eye on, thanks for the link WK. ;-)

Cheers.

That will be interesting to keep an eye on, thanks for the link WK. ;-)

Cheers.

I doubt that we will live long enough to find out.

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That will be interesting to keep an eye on, thanks for the link WK. ;-)

Cheers.

I doubt that we will live long enough to find out.

They just uncovered it...wait for a while...and the detereioration of the orbit will be calculated! ;)

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