This artist's impression shows small companion star MM 1b forming in the outskirts of star MM 1a's massive disk. (Credit: J. D. Ilee / University of Leeds) The universe is full of surprises, and a colossal young star has been hiding a stellar one. While observing infant star MM 1a, astronomers found that its massive disk was actually forming another star instead of planets. The much smaller companion, dubbed MM 1b, was detected just outside the behemoth star’s dusty disk, and could actually house a planet-forming disk of its own. The discovery of the new star, published on December 14 in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, marks one of the first times astronomers saw a star forming in the fragmented disk of another.
Binary stars are pretty common in the universe, and it’s thought that they form the same way single stars do: from a massive cloud of dust and gas ...
