Astronomers discover two stars that became a binary system just 60 years ago

While our Sun is alone, about half of the stars with a similar mass have a companion. And recently, astronomers have discovered evidence of a binary system that may have formed about 60 years ago.

The system in question is IRAS 07299−1651, a binary system located about 5,300 light-years away. It had already been studied in 2019, and researchers initially believed that these stars had formed from the same disk of gas and dust.

However, while conducting new observations over an eight-year period using ALMA, the Very Large Array, the Very Large Telescope, and the James Webb Space Telescope, the researchers noticed something surprising. In fact, they thought that the two stars orbited each other in nearly circular orbits, whereas in reality, the orbits are highly eccentric.

As a result, this configuration is difficult to explain if both stars formed together from the same disk. For this reason, astronomers believe that they formed separately before joining. And that’s not all, because they estimate that this encounter occurred only about 60 years ago. 

Thus, this discovery also allows astronomers not only to study very young stars but also to better understand their evolution. Indeed, no one knows whether this system will remain as it is or whether these two stars will separate.