Images from the NASA space telescopes Spitzer and Hubble have been used in a new study which claims to have found five solar objects very similar Eta Carniae, an erupted solar system within 10,000 light-years of Earth though to be the only one of its kind.
According to Space Daily, Eta Carinae is a solar system which outshines earth’s sun by five million times. It is a binary system, meaning it consists of two massive stars orbiting one another.
“The most massive stars are always rare, but they have a tremendous impact on the chemical and physical evolution of their host galaxy,” said Rubab Khan, lead scientist on the study and postdoctoral researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
The types of massive stars that Khan describes produce huge amounts of the chemical elements which are vital to life. Eventually, after millions or billions of years, these massive stars explode into supernovas which hurl these chemical elements into space.
A situation like Eta Carinae — a binary star system containing two massive stars which go supernova concurrently — was always thought to be incredibly rare and alarmingly unique. However, that did nothing to deter the researchers from carrying out their study.
“We knew others were out there,” said co-investigator Krzystztof Stanek, professor of astronomy at Ohio State University in Columbus.
“It was really a matter of figuring out what to look for and being persistent.”
The survey, which was carried out in 2015, found five objects in space which mimic the optical and infrared properties of Eta Carinae. These objects, dubbed Eta twins, are more than likely high-mass stars not dissimilar from one of the massive stars in the Eta Carnae system.
More will be found out about these rare systems when NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), equipped with instruments ideally suited for further study of these massive and rare stars, launches around its intended date in late 2018.