Spiral dwarf galaxy NGC 5949 imaged by NASA with the Hubble Telescope. (Schematic) Image: ESA/Hubble & NASA
A recent study in Nature Astronomy shows that astronomers have discovered a star 26,000 light-years away. The surrounding dust disk is a spiral pattern, and the entire star is like a mini Milky Way.
The study mentioned that the region where the star is located has some different characteristics than other regions of the Milky Way. The number of novae in this region is less than one tenth of that in other regions, and the temperature distribution in the region is very different. It reaches absolute zero, and in some places it reaches hundreds of degrees Celsius.
Scientists believe that one of the reasons why strange planets can be found in this region is because the number of stars is less than in other regions, and the strange stars are relatively less affected by other stars.
The study pointed out that it is not uncommon to have primordial dust disks around stars, because stars are generally formed from such dust disks. But finding a star so close to Earth and in its birth stage is quite rare. The star is regarding 32 times the mass of the sun, and the diameter of the primordial dust disk around it is 4,000 times the distance between the sun and Earth.
The rarest, astronomers point out, is the dust disk around the star, which takes on a spiral shape that makes it look like a miniature Milky Way. The researchers speculate that it was because an object regarding three times the mass of the sun once flew near the star and turned the dust disk into a spiral. This event is expected to have occurred thousands of years ago, and the dust disk has maintained a spiral pattern since then.
Scientists pointed out that this star is the first massive star born from the spinning dust disk mechanism. Previously found are small masses, similar to the mass of the sun.
The discovery of this planet also overturned scientists’ speculation that “stars more than 8 times the mass of the sun were born by different mechanisms.” There is now evidence that stars as massive as 30 times the Sun can be born from spinning disks of dust.