Scientists have been studying a young binary star system named SVC 13 for the past three decades. And now, fresh reports suggest that the binary star could give birth to a planetary system.
An article published in The Astrophysical Journal detailed that SVS 13 consists of two protostars surrounded by disks of materials that could lead to the formation of planets.
A study that spanned over three decades
During the study that lasted for over thirty years, researchers used data collected using the Very Large Array (VLA) and new observations conducted with the Atacama Large Submillimetre/Millimetre Array (ALMA) radio telescope.
According to the study team who carried out this research, each of the two protostars has its own circumstellar disk. It should be also noted that there's a third disk of the circumbinary type that orbits both stars.
Thorough data analysis helped researchers identify thirty molecules in the SVS 13 system including thirteen complex organic molecules precursors of life.
Identifying the binary star system
When researchers initially started observing SVS 13 system, they thought that it was a single star. However, observation using radio telescopes helped researchers understand that it is a binary star system.
"At the IAA, we began studying this system twenty-five years ago. We were surprised when we discovered that SVS 13 was a radio binary because only one star is seen in the optical," said study co-author Guillem Anglada, a researcher at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía.
Anglada added, "Normally, stellar embryos are detected in radio, but they only become visible at the end of the gestation process. It was very strange to discover a pair of twin stars where one of them seemed to have evolved much faster than the other."
