A Recently Discovered Double Binary System is Unstable. Stars Could Collide, Leading to a Supernova - by BrianKoberlein
The orbital motions of HD 74438. Credit: University of Canterbury, Mt John Observatory
It was discovered in 2017 by the Gaia spacecraft, and it is what’s known as a spectroscopic double binary. This means Gaia’s telescopes aren’t powerful enough to observe individual stars, but we know they are there because of their stellar spectra. As the stars orbit around each other, each star’s spectra Doppler shifts slightly because of their relative motion. So we can calculate their motion and speed.
The HD 74438 is still very young. It is part of an open cluster known as IC 2391, which is only 43 million years old. The stars are all of a similar mass to the Sun, so they will have similar lifetimes. Given enough time, the stars are likely to end their lives as white dwarfs. And since the gravitational instability of the system is small, the stars could live long enough to become white dwarfs. But their orbits would still be unstable, and that could cause them to collide in the end.
That’s where things get a bit interesting because the HD 74438 is a perfect example of how a multiple star system could evolve to create a merger of white dwarfs. White dwarf mergers are one way that Type Ia supernovae occur. These supernovae play a central role in our measurements of cosmic expansion. Multiple star systems such as HD 74438 could be a primary cause of Type Ia supernovae.
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