VFTS 352
The most massive overcontact binary system known.
Last updated
VFTS 352 is a contact binary star system located about 160,000 light years away in the Tarantula Nebula, which is part of the Large Magellanic Cloud. It is the most massive and earliest spectral type overcontact system known. The system consists of two massive stars of almost equal size that orbit each other in less than 27 hours, with their atmospheres overlapping due to their extreme proximity.
Quick Facts
- Distance
- 160,000 light years
- Location
- Tarantula Nebula, Large Magellanic Cloud
- Orbital period
- less than 27 hours
- Spectral type
- O-type
- Discovery instrument
- European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope
Facts from the source article.
Lore & Background
VFTS 352 was discovered using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope, with its description published on 13 October 2015. The two stars are extremely hot and luminous, and they are tidally locked, rotating at a rate equal to their orbital period. Both components are massive O-type stars, and such stars are the primary source of oxygen in the universe, produced in their interiors via the CNO cycle and released to the interstellar environment by a supernova explosion.
Reader's Guide
VFTS 352 is significant as the most massive and earliest spectral type overcontact system known, providing a rare laboratory for studying the behavior of stars in such extreme proximity. Its future is uncertain, with two possible scenarios: either the two stars will merge into a very rapidly rotating star that might end its life in a long-duration gamma-ray burst, or they will each end their lives in supernova explosions, forming a close binary black hole system that could become a gravitational wave source through black hole–black hole merger. This system thus offers insights into both stellar evolution and the generation of gravitational waves.
More in Emission, Dark and Reflection Nebulae
Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: VFTS 352 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
- Word definitions: the Codexery glossary, each quoted from its Wikipedia article.
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