No one has long been amazed double and even triple star systems; There are also planets under two or three suns. However, systems including six stars immediately remain rare. Until recently, only 17 such objects have been known, and TIC 168789840 has become the 18th. This is reported in the new article by American astronomers adopted for publication in The Astronomical Journal and affordable in the open online library ARXIV.
Tic 168789840 is located in the constellation Eridan, at a distance of 1428 light years. It includes gravitationally related pairs of stars, two of which (A and C) form the "kernel" of the system, and the third (c) rotates around them at a remote orbit. The stars of the double system and bypass each other in 1.6 days, the system C - in 1.3 days, and in 8.2. In turn, the Systems themselves A and C treat each other about four Earth years, and by bypassing their system in 2000 years.
NASA Astrophysicist Brian Powell and his colleagues found TIC 168789840 with the help of a TSS outer telescope, noting that such a structure resembles the already known multiple star with six components - Castor (α twins). However, three pairs of TIC 168789840 are even more similar to each other: they all include a larger star with a radius of 1.4-1.7 solar radius and a mass of 1.2-1.3 solar, as well as its small companion weighing 0.5 -07 solar and 0.5-0.6 radius from solar.
Double stars A and C are too close to each other, creating strong gravitational anomalies, so it is impossible to imagine that the planets could be formed and survive. However, scientists suggest that the system relatively distant from them in the planet may well be. The authors plan to continue observations of TIC 168789840 and, perhaps, to discover such a strange distant world.
This work will make it possible to figure out exactly how unusual systems are formed, including so many stars immediately. It is assumed that they can appear as the triple stars formed together - in the overall "cradle." However, further, passing through a gas-pepped cloud, each of the participants of the system acquired a new neighbor, becoming double. "All this is simply amazing," says Brian Powell. "I wish I would have a starship, to park him nearby and see all with my own eyes."
Source: Naked Science