When stars get really close to each other, it's like they're having a cosmic kiss. These star kisses can cause huge explosions called supernovae, lighting up the sky with incredible brightness. Sometimes, the stars can merge together to form an even bigger star. Other times, they might create a super-dense object called a black hole. It’s an amazing cosmic event that shows just how powerful and dynamic our universe is! Credit:
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CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/:
Alhena: Pablo Carlos Budassi, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alhena.png
Meli thev:
DS Tuc A, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:DS_Tuc_A(right)B(left)_H%2BOPEN.png
GD 165, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GD_165.png
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GD_165.png
ESO/S. Gillessen/MPE/Marc Schartmann/L. Calçada
ESO/MPE
ESO/L. Calçada
ESO/M. Kornmesser
Animation is created by Bright Side.
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Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV
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FunTranscript
00:00Spotted, it seems like two giant stars were caught in the middle of a romantic kiss.
00:06This sounds a little bit like paparazzi fodder at first, but we're actually talking about
00:11a cosmic twist an international team of astronomers has discovered.
00:17So the life cycle of a solo star is relatively simple.
00:21They're born in vast, gassy areas of space, burn through their fuel, and at some moment,
00:26they explode as supernovae.
00:29But when stars are born relatively close to each other, their gravitational pull can cause
00:34them some troubles and captivate them into what seems like an eternal dance.
00:40In some moments, they come so close to each other that they're practically touching.
00:45These stars may spend billions of years circling each other, but their kiss lasts for a few
00:51million years only, which is just a blink of an eye in cosmic terms.
00:57The lead author of this study was on a mission to find these binary stars caught in such
01:03a cosmic kiss.
01:05He focused his search on the Tarantula Nebula, a beautiful star-forming region located in
01:10the Large Magellanic Cloud, which is 160,000 light-years away from our home planet.
01:18And there it was, the shiny double star system that stood out from the rest.
01:24The two stars found there were pretty big and nearly the same size.
01:28Together, they make a mass of about 57 times larger than that of our Sun.
01:34Before this, we discovered only three other binary systems with a large mass.
01:39And since these two stars were so close to each other, they created an intense gravitational
01:44pull.
01:46This made them orbit each other at a staggering rate of once a day with their centers a mere
01:511.4 miles apart.
01:54With the stars being so close, they formed a bridge where their fuel could mingle, allowing
02:00for around 30% of their total volume to be shared between the two.
02:06Temperatures of this system were crazy too.
02:10At first, it seems the internal mixing of their energy might make these stars live longer
02:15as it allows for more fuel to be burned and for longer periods of time.
02:20This is just a temporary benefit.
02:22There are two most likely scenarios for the stars' ultimate fate.
02:27They could merge to form one giant star, which would eventually explode into a supernova.
02:33Or they could each explode separately and live out their remaining years as black holes
02:38orbiting each other.
02:41If they merge, this process would probably take around 600,000 years.
02:47While if they become binary black holes, they could continue burning for another 3
02:52million years.
02:53But both scenarios would ultimately lead to their destruction.
02:57Unless the stars could end up as two separate black holes drifting away from each other
03:02through the vastness of space, there's a possibility for that to happen too.
03:08There's something spectacular stargazers across the globe could see recently.
03:13Jupiter and Venus, the two brightest planets in the sky, ended up so close it appeared
03:19like they were about to collide, or as if they were kissing too.
03:23At least that's what it looked like from here on Earth.
03:26In real terms, they're still 400 million miles away from each other.
03:31Here's another interesting thing astronomers like to talk about.
03:34G-objects.
03:36G-objects are celestial objects that look like clouds of dust and gas, but behave like
03:42stars.
03:43At the center of our galaxy, there's a supermassive black hole.
03:48It's 4 million times the mass of our sun.
03:51And recently, scientists found out there are two mysterious G-objects that hang out pretty
03:57close to that black hole, so-called G1 and G2.
04:03The most probable theory is that G2 are two stars that were orbiting the black hole in
04:08tandem and merged into an extremely large star cloaked in unusually thick gas and dust.
04:16During G2's closest approach to the black hole, it showed a strange signature.
04:22It was elongated and much of its gas was torn apart.
04:26As it got closer to the black hole, it lost its outer shell, and now it's getting more
04:31compact again.
04:34The thing that has everyone excited about the G-objects is the material that gets pulled
04:39off of them by tidal forces as they sweep by the central black hole.
04:44This material must inevitably fall into the black hole, and the result is an impressive
04:49fireworks show.
04:51This happens because the material eaten by the black hole will heat up and emit radiation
04:56before it disappears across the event horizon.
05:00An event horizon is that scary boundary around a black hole from which nothing can escape.
05:07Now it seems scientists have discovered four more G-objects, and they're all located within
05:130.13 light-years of this black hole.
05:17And it could be that all of the six objects used to be binary stars that got together
05:23and merged because of the powerful gravity of this giant black hole.
05:29It takes over a million years to finish the merging process between two stars.
05:34We definitely want more G-objects because it's one of the rare opportunities for us
05:39to study how things behave near a supermassive black hole without being swallowed...yet.
05:48Have you heard of variable stars?
05:51Look up at the sky.
05:52We often think of the stars as unchanging, eternal lights.
05:56Yes, some stars might appear constant, but others change in brightness over time, which
06:02is why we call them variable stars.
06:05Some of them dim and brighten again over days, months, or even years.
06:10We can't see it with the naked eye.
06:12We're talking about changes astronomers can only notice using equipment and over longer
06:17periods.
06:20And how about vampire stars?
06:23Imagine two stars, a red giant and a white dwarf, in a binary system, swirling around
06:29each other like cosmic ballet dancers.
06:32The red giant, which used to be a vibrant and fiery star, now has aged and grown tired.
06:39Its outer layers of hydrogen, which were once held tightly by its gravity, have now weakened,
06:44making it vulnerable to the smaller, denser white dwarf.
06:48The white dwarf, known as the vampire star, thirsts for the hydrogen fuel that its larger
06:54sibling holds, and it sees a great chance there.
06:59As they spin together, the vampire star uses its powerful gravitational force to steal
07:04the hydrogen from the red giant's outer layers.
07:07The vampire star glows with a blue hue, looking full of energy and more youthful and vibrant
07:13than its aged dancing partner.
07:17Not only vampire stars, the horror continues with zombie stars too!
07:22Sometimes when the red giant explodes, it doesn't completely break up into smaller pieces.
07:28Instead, a white dwarf remnant is left behind.
07:32It's basically a zombie star that was gone at the moment, but has risen back to life.
07:38But this isn't your average zombie, hungry for brains.
07:42No, this star hungers for the very substance that its vampire sibling had been taking from
07:47it all along, hydrogen.
07:50And if the zombie star is close enough to its victim, it will start sucking material
07:54back in to start its core again.
07:57It will become a hydrogen explosive, ready to go boom in a spectacular show of cosmic
08:03revenge!
08:04It's a fascinating phenomenon, we usually won't even manage to detect it, because
08:10these explosions are much fainter than the usual supernovas.
08:14But when it does happen, the resulting blast is truly epic.
08:19And it destroys both the vampire star and its zombie sibling.
08:23It seems vampires and zombies may not be a work of fiction after all.
08:29Not only are we made of stardust, but we're also more similar to stars than we thought
08:34too.
08:35For example, stars also like to hang out with their close group of friends.
08:40Most stars prefer to travel through the universe in clusters.
08:44It's a group of stars that end up bound together by gravitational force.
08:48The stars in the cluster are mostly made of the same age and type, hobbies, and interests.
08:54I guess even they have better social lives than I do!