The Hubble team has released an astonishing image. NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope of the triple star system HP Tau.
About 550 light-years away in the constellation Taurus, three dazzling stars, HP Tau, shine brightly from the cavity of a reflection nebula in a new Hubble image. Image credit: NASA / ESA / G. Duchene, University of Grenoble I / Gladys Kober, NASA and Catholic University of America.
HP Tau is a triple star system located approximately 550 light-years away in the constellation Taurus.
The system, also known as EPIC 247592463, TIC 118521708, or IRAS 04328+2248, consists of the variable stars HP Tau, HP Tau G2, and HP Tau G3.
HP Tau is one of the stars. T Taurus a type of young variable star that has not yet begun nuclear fusion but is beginning to evolve into a hydrogen-fueled star similar to the Sun.
“T Tauri stars tend to be less than 10 million years old, compared to our Sun, which is about 4.6 billion years old, but they formed when they were shrouded in clouds of dust and gas. “They are often discovered as they are,” Hubble astronomers said.
“Like other variable stars, HP Tau's brightness changes over time.”
“The T Tauri star is known to have periodic and random fluctuations in brightness.”
“Random fluctuations can be caused by chaotic conditions in a developing young star, such as instability in the accretion disk of dust and gas around the star, material from that disk falling into the star and being consumed, and flares on the star's surface. It may be due to the nature of
“The periodic changes may be due to giant sunspots rotating in and out of view.”
“Clouds of gas and dust glow with reflected light as they orbit the star.”
“Reflection nebulae do not themselves emit visible light, but they shine when light from nearby stars reflects off gas and dust, much like fog illuminated by a car's headlights.”
Hubble studied the HP-tau system as part of its study of protoplanetary disks, disks of material around stars that coalesce into planets over millions of years.
Source: www.sci.news
