Located about 26,000 light-years from Earth, the star is about 32 times larger than the Sun. It is contained within a large disk of rotating gas. Such disks are common in the Universe and serve as “stellar fuel” – they help young stars grow into large bright suns. But astronomers had never seen spiral objects resembling miniature galaxies around stars.
The scientists speculated that the gas disk was agitated when it collided with another object, possibly a massive star. To test this hypothesis, the team calculated a dozen potential orbits for the mysterious object and then ran simulations to see if any of those orbits spiraled into the disk. It turns out that this could be very good.
“The good agreement between analytical calculations, numerical simulations, and ALMA (telescope – approximate) observations provides strong evidence that the spiral arms in the disk are remnants of the passage of an intruder,” the researchers wrote.
Source: Ferra
