Han Jinlin and his team from Beijing's National Astronomical Observatories found a rare triple-star system. A pulsar spins 300 times a second, while a Sun-like star orbits the duo every 73.5 years. Researchers noted, "the detailed evolution of triple-star systems is complicated and poorly known." This discovery helps study star families.
One of the dead stars is a pulsar that spins over 300 times a second, while the other is a white dwarf. The pulsar revolves around its partner every eight days.
A Sun-like star orbits this duo from a distance, completing its orbit in 73.5 years.
This discovery was reported by Han Jinlin and his team from Beijing's National Astronomical Observatories in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The discovery is only the second known instance of such a system, after a US-led team's finding in 2014.
The researchers noted that "the detailed evolution of triple-star systems is complicated and poorly known."
This unique configuration makes it a candidate for studying how these star families evolve over time.
Pulsars are among the universe's most accurate clocks, sending out radio wave beams like lighthouses.
However, this particular pulsar, first detected by FAST in 2020, was slowing down at an unusual rate.
A team from Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory found that its spin was decelerating about 100 times faster than other similar pulsars.
This finding contradicted standard theories of how such pulsars form and hinted at another star hidden in the system.
By combining FAST data with observations from other telescopes, including 18 years of gamma-ray data from NASA's Fermi space telescope, researchers identified the hidden Sun-like star.
This star's gravity affects the pulsar's spin, creating an illusion that its rotation is slowing down.
The three stars were likely born together from the same gas cloud and have aged at different speeds due to their varying masses.