The James Webb Telescope revealed a unique triple star system that scientists named “Aviv” after the god of chaos in Egyptian mythology. The mid-infrared image of the system showed a structure resembling a massive cosmic embryo, reflecting its cosmic chaos.

The system includes two rare, extremely hot and massive Wolf-Rayet stars that emit powerful stellar winds that carry with them huge masses of material, revealing their rich contents of helium, nitrogen and carbon. When these two stars approach each other in their 190-year orbit, their stellar winds collide, forming dense dust rich in carbon, which forms in the form of spirals that expand outward within 25 years of each revolution.

This unique star system includes two of the rarest stars in our galaxy, the Wolf-Rayet type, which are very hot and massive stars that live an unstable life. These stars release strong stellar winds that carry with them huge masses of material, revealing their interiors rich in helium, nitrogen and carbon.

The James Webb Telescope has revealed a whole series of these overlapping spirals, which represent the last four stages of the approaching stars over the past 700 years, while the European Southern Observatory only observed the innermost spiral structure in 2018.

Scientists also discovered the existence of a third, very massive star (40-50 times the mass of the Sun) through the cavities it created in the expanding dust shells as it interacted with the stellar wind.

Scientists believe that this triple system is doomed to explode: Wolf-Rayet stars are expected to explode as supernovas, leaving behind black holes, while the massive giant turns into a neutron star, resulting in a system of two black holes and a neutron star.

The two studies documenting these discoveries were published on November 19 in The Astrophysical Journal, opening a new window to understanding the evolution of rare and complex star systems in the universe.

Source: Space