Scientists have found a young star system with four "suns" at once, which is located in the star formation region in the constellation Orion. The unusual phenomenon was discovered by scientists from Chile during the study of 72 giant molecular clouds of Orion.

The discovery was made by the international ALMA Survey of Orion Planck Galactic Cold Clumps (ALMASOP) team. These observations explain the origin and formation of double and multiple star systems.

Scientists have long known that about half of the stars in the Milky Way are in double systems. By studying such systems with multiple stars, scientists hope to better understand how planets form and how life appears on them.

According to the most common theory of star formation, celestial bodies are formed in the densest regions of molecular clouds, also called "dense nuclei". This theory explains the formation of individual star systems, but researchers still do not know how systems with four stars are formed.

According to scientists, multiple star systems can form due to the fragmentation of cloud nuclei during their early evolution, but there is no evidence or observations of such processes.

Thequadruple star system consists of two protostars and two gas concentrations, which are likely to undergo gravitational collapse in the near future and become stars.

It is also interesting that the largest distance between the four objects in the system was about 1000 astronomical units (AU), which is 33 times the distance between the Sun and Neptune.

The dust emission spectra also revealed several elongated ribbon-like structures that linked the four objects together. The team suggests that these extended ribbons may be "funnels" that transport gas from the outer shell of the core and connect the newborn stars.

"The extreme compactness and proximity of this system is an exciting discovery. The analysis shows that in the future this system is likely to form a gravitationally bound system of four stars. We do not have an explanation for how the gas leaks propagate, as they may be related to gas accumulation processes by members of the system," said Professor Liu Ti of the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory (CAS-SHAO), who led the study.

Earlier, OBOZREVATEL published a study by scientists about the mineral that lightning first created on Earth.

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