Prediction of merging stars may solve one of Hubble’s greatest mysteries
What caused the incredible eruption that Hubble caught on film? A predicted merger in 5 years might show us.
“We have chased away the clouds, the sky is all ‘rose.’” -Francois Hollande
When you think about our Solar System, with its lone, luminous star dominating both the mass and light of our local corner of the Milky Way, you might think that this is what ‘typical’ looks like. In some ways, this is true, but a Solar System with multiple stars — binaries, trinaries or more — might be even more common. At interstellar distances, many of these binaries are too close together to resolve even with the most powerful of telescopes. Instead, it’s only the variations in their light, where the stars more relative to one another, periodically eclipse (passing in front of one another), or even touch one another, that allows us to figure this mystery out. Thanks to Calvin College Astronomer Larry Molnar, we can predict that one of these binaries is going to do something spectacular: merge into a single star. Moreover, it’s going to do so in a predictable fashion and on a predictable timescale, in just 5 years.
