Astronomers today know three categories of stars, similar in their parameters to the Sun and therefore called stars of the solar type. Astronomers have also known for a long time one feature of these stars: many known solar-type stars are binary stars revolving around a common center of mass. It is possible that stars of the solar type are binary even all.
Previously, the latter statement was considered a speculative theory, but a sudden new analysis by astronomers from Harvard and UC-Berkeley suddenly reveals that in fact ALL solar-type stars are born with a twin, including our own sun.
The findings, recently accepted for publication in the Royal Astronomical Society's Monthly Notices, are based on observations of newborn stars in a large cloud in the constellation Perseus.
Stars are born inside ovoid clouds of gas called dense cores. These dusty gas clouds block light from the stars in and behind them. But fortunately for us, radio waves can also penetrate the darkness.
A group of researchers from Harvard and UC-Berkeley decided to look towards the so-called "stellar nurseries" in the constellation of Perseus in the radio wave spectrum, which allowed us to look visually at the colossal array of stars giving birth there.
When computers processed the radio wave image and astronomers received a picture, they found that all stars with the masses of the Sun, which are 500,000 years old, are binary, that is, double stars separated by a distance of about 500 astronomical units (an astronomical unit is the distance from the Earth to the Sun) … Older stars, several million years old, tend to approach each other at a distance of about 200 astronomical units.
The authors of the study came up with many mathematical models explaining the distribution of stars, and came to the conclusion that the only way that can explain what they saw is a theory that assumes the birth of a pair of twins for all stars with solar masses. Further, over time, the stars either separate, or one of them loses its luminosity, which explains the picture of the Galaxy, where not all stars with the mass of the Sun look like binary in a telescope.
To date, this is only a theory, there are few facts for final conclusions. Scientists need time to finally comprehend everything. Additional observations and facts are also needed - the study of other gas clouds forming new stars.
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However, taking the liberty of assuming that their theory is correct, scientists tried to calculate what kind of twin our star might be, which they called Nemesis. Like almost all stellar twins, Nemesis is not identical to the Sun, but most likely it is an object with a sub-star mass - the so-called "chemical star" or brown dwarf. In view of the lack of mass, the thermonuclear reaction in them stops rather quickly and the star freezes in the form of a huge planet emitting in the infrared with a mass of 12-80 Jupiter masses.
According to scientists' calculations, Nemesis is 17 times farther from the Sun than Neptune, so it cannot be visible. Most likely, the last time its orbit approached the Sun, there were global catastrophes on Earth that led to the extinction of flora and, as a consequence, the death of dinosaurs.
To date, astronomers have not yet found Nemesis. As they say, they still need to work to understand the physics and mathematics of the discovered astronomical phenomenon.