Indian-led astronomers discover rare blue straggler star with brown dwarf companion in tight orbit
मुख्य बातें
- •First confirmed discovery of a blue straggler star with a brown dwarf companion in a compact binary system
- •Orbital period of 5.6 hours, the shortest ever found in the "brown dwarf desert"
- •Brown dwarf mass is 0.056 solar masses, below the hydrogen-burning limit
- •Study led by Indian institutions: IIA, ARIES, Gauhati University, and INAF-Catania, Italy
In a landmark discovery, a multi-institution team led by Indian astronomers has identified the first confirmed case of a blue straggler star paired with a brown dwarf in an extremely compact binary system. The breakthrough, published in the journal *Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters*, was made by researchers from the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES), Gauhati University, and Italy’s INAF-Catania Astrophysical Observatory.
Blue straggler stars are a long-standing puzzle in astrophysics because they appear younger and bluer than expected for their cluster’s age. Unlike normal stars that evolve steadily, blue stragglers seem to defy standard stellar aging, suggesting they may gain mass through interactions with companion stars or mergers. This discovery sheds new light on that process.
