(ORDO NEWS) — An international team of astronomers using the TESS satellite discovered a previously unknown system consisting of two low-mass stars. These stars are comparable in size to our Sun.
A new binary star system has been discovered using a spacecraft designed to search for and study the so-called transiting exoplanets.
In this case, the TESS satellite helped astronomers discover the object, designated 2M1222-57. This system consists of two stars the size of the Sun, but less massive than our star.
The discoverers classified it as an eclipsing binary system (EBs). This is the name of binary systems, the stars in which show the observer periodic changes in their glow.
This is due to the fact that during the revolution around each other, one of the stars regularly passes directly in front of its companion, blocking its light from the observer, and vice versa.
The newly discovered system is located about 345 light-years from Earth. It was possible to identify it thanks to the collected observations and measurements of the light curve.
The data obtained made it possible to establish that the period of revolution of stars in this system around each other is 3.07 days.
The primary and secondary stars of the 2M1222-57 system turned out to be similar to each other in their parameters.
Their radii are about 0.976 and 0.942 solar radii, respectively, and their masses are 0.735 and 0.668 solar masses.
At the same time, the primary star is slightly hotter than its companion. The age of the system is estimated at 16.2 million years.
It is interesting that in this system, as the observations show, there may also be a tertiary companion located approximately 100 astronomical units from the above two stars.
The researchers estimate that the mass of this object may be about two solar masses.
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