Astronomers Discover One of the Most Massive Binary Stars in the Galaxy

NGC 3603 is a starburst region located 22,000 light years away from the Sun, it’s the closest region of this kind known in our Galaxy Credit: ESO

A research team has used both archival Hubble Space Telescope data and new observations to precisely measure the binary star system NGC3603-A1. One star weighs about 93 times the mass of our sun, while its companion tips the scales at roughly 70 solar masses. Together, they represent one of the most massive binary systems ever discovered in our galaxy.

What makes this system truly extraordinary is the speed of its orbital movement. The two giants orbit each other once every 3.8 days, meaning that in the time Earth completes one year around the sun, these stellar titans will have circled each other nearly 100 times. Their proximity and incredible masses create a dynamic relationship that’s reshaping both stars.

The discovery required detective work that spanned years and relied on a crucial insight from an unlikely source. Sarah Bodansky, then an undergraduate student at Carleton College, was working remotely at Lowell Observatory during the pandemic summer of 2020 when she noticed something everyone had missed in the older Hubble data. The study is published in The Astrophysical Journal.

(Source: phys.org)