\u201cWe were in the middle of observing one night, with a new spectrograph that we had recently built, when we received a message from our colleagues about a peculiar object composed of a nebulous gas expanding rapidly away from a central star. How did it form? What are the properties of the central star? We were immediately excited to help solve the mystery!\u201d <\/span>Gu\u00f0mundur Stef\u00e1nsson<\/a> <\/span>of Princeton University stated.<\/p>\n [Read: Why this security engineer loves working in infosec<\/span><\/a>]<\/em><\/p>\n Unlike our own Sun, most stars in the <\/span>Milky Way<\/a> <\/span>are found in binary systems, dancing with another star around their common center of gravity.<\/p>\n \u201cStellar mergers are a brief but common phase in the evolution of binary star systems. These events have many astrophysical implications; for example, they may lead to the creation of atypical stars\u2026 Although a handful of stellar mergers have been observed directly, the central remnants of these events were shrouded by an opaque shell of dust and molecules, making it impossible to observe their final state,\u201d researchers wrote in an article in <\/span>Nature<\/em><\/a> <\/span>detailing the study.<\/p>\n In systems where stars are close enough can result in a <\/span>collision between the stars<\/a>, merging the bodies together into one massive star.<\/p>\n \u201cPurple haze all in my brain\u2026 Lately things, they don\u2019t seem the same \u2014 <\/span><\/em>Purple Haze, Jimi Hendrix<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Orbital energy once present in the former <\/span>stars<\/a> <\/span>results in the ejection of large quantities of material from the newly-formed body.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen neutron stars collide, all hell breaks loose. They start producing a tremendous amount of visible light, and also gamma rays, X-rays, radio waves,\u201d describes <\/span>Frans Pretorius<\/a>, physics professor at Princeton.<\/p>\n Astronomers went to work studying the Blue Ring <\/span>Nebula<\/a>, using a pair of 10-meter telescopes \u2014 the HIRES optical spectrograph at the Keck Telescope in Hawaii, and the near-infrared Habitable-zone Planet Finder attached to the Hobby-Eberly Telescope in Texas.<\/p>\n Analysis revealed TYC 2597\u2013735\u20131 is the product of a stellar merger that took place thousands of years ago.<\/p>\n The Blue Ring Nebula offers astronomers a unique target to study \u2014 a composite <\/span>star<\/a> <\/span>caught still settling down from its birth in a cathartic stellar merger.<\/p>\nIt takes two to tango<\/h2>\n
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Acting funny, but I don\u2019t know why\u2026 \u2018Scuse me while I kiss the sky\u201d<\/p>\nThree eyes are better than two<\/h2>\n
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