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We orbit around a star as part of the solar system. This star is one of a
hundred to four hundred million stars that make up the Milky Way.
Our solar system is unique in many ways, and one of those is that it only comprises one star.
Most star systems actually consist of two stars called a binary system.
Most binary systems can be hard to detect. The easiest way is through visual
observations where it is possible to resolve the individual stars themselves.
This is most often not possible, so astronomers have to rely on other techniques.
One involves looking at changes in the spectra of the starlight, which can show
a wobble to the motion of the star, indicating that it is moving about a common center.
The third method uses a measurement of the light intensity received by the star.
Many stars show a periodic change in their apparent brightness.
This could happen for a number of reasons. Some stars undergo changes in their
intrinsic luminosity. The other possibility is that it is a binary system where the orbital plane
lies edge-on to us so that the stars periodically eclipse one another.
These systems are called eclipsing binaries. Sometimes these systems can contain more
than two stars. But now NASA has detected a new and bizarre sextuple system, in which all
the stars are aligned perfectly, creating a sextuple eclipsing star system.
More strange is that the system seems to consist of three pairs of binary stars
locked into an exotic dance. It was discovered using NASA's exoplanet
hunting Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS for short.
TESS is cataloging how the brightness of around 800 million stars change over time.
This means that they can identify stars whose brightness dips, which is usually a
good sign that a planet might be in orbit around the star.
Using this mechanism, they were able to identify a hundred star systems with
potentially three or more stars. From this data they were able to
identify the rather remarkable sextuple system TYC 7037-89-1.
So let's examine the system in a little more detail. They can identify three pairs of star,
pair A, B and C. When we examine the masses and the size of the stars in the
system, something rather remarkable stands out: each pair of stars consists
of one larger star which is brighter and one smaller star which is smaller. It
also appears as if the ratio between the larger and smaller star is consistently
the same throughout the system. The estimated temperatures of the stars
are also consistently the same for both the larger and the smaller star.
Pair A orbits each other every 1.3 days, and pair C every 1.6 days.
Pair A orbits pair C every four years. Much further out from pair A and C sits pair B.
These orbit each other every 8.2 days, and B orbits pair A and C every 2,000 years.
This system is a very interesting find and the astronomers offer no clue as to
how such a system could form. Although the idea of star capture is
possible, the sheer number of binary star systems rules out this possibility as the main cause.
Instead, mainstream scientists rely on the idea that some fragmentation of the
molecular cloud occurred, causing multiple stars to be formed.
The problem here is that this has to occur three times at different locations,
but every time in the same ratio split of two to one, and also with the plane
exactly aligned to Earth. In the Electric Universe there is a much
simpler way of looking at these systems. So let's break this down in a different way.
We know that stars form along filaments and that plasma flows along these filaments.
As the plasma flows, it will tend to form into filaments. One large flowing mass of plasma will
form into a number of smaller filaments. As the currents flow along these filaments,
they will generate a magnetic field which will cause the filaments to become
attracted to each other. This often results in the formation of
twin filaments wrapping around each other. Peratt studied these in detail in
his laboratory and has written about them in his book on the Plasma Universe.
Of particular interest is a computer simulation he performed which showed
that when three filaments start to form, and two are slightly closer to each
other, then this attractive force will cause the two closest to wrap around
each other and not the other one. This may be an alternative way of
explaining why stars form and are often found in pairs. And in this example, we
would have the initial formation process whereby three stars formed, two much
closer due to the attraction, and one on a much larger orbit compared to the others.
When Peratt looked to the interactions of Birkeland currents, he saw that when
the filaments pinch, a double layer forms at the same point in each filament.
This would also therefore explain why all the stars are in the same plane with
their rotation vectors aligned. So how would we explain a sextuple star
system then? In the Electric Universe the stars are powered by the movement of this plasma.
Stars will form where a filament becomes pinched causing the material to be
compressed in a small area. Electric stars attempt to balance their incoming
current and electron availability with the output brightness and surface area.
Sudden dramatic changes to the incoming current density can cause an overload to the star.
The only way to deal with this increase of charge is to create a greater surface
area. The simplest way to do this is by splitting the star in two.
This immediately increases the surface area greatly. These events are often referred to as
electrical stressing events and the splitting process is called the
fissioning of the star, meaning it splits into two. We also suspect that stars can become
ejected from their birthing filament. This is something that I have previously
looked into, if you are interested in more details on this.
The basic concept is that the filaments are not stationary. So, while the star
forms and is small, it is able to move with this moving filament. But at a
certain point it gains enough mass that it can no longer follow the movement and
gets kicked out of it. As the stars formed at the same time, it
is likely that this process happened at the same time for all three stars.
Upon leaving the filament, it is likely that the stars would have undergone a
significant electrical stressing event, causing them to fission.
This would have resulted in the formation of a close companion to each
of the initial three stars. This would not only explain how it is
possible to create a sextuple star system, all aligned along the same plane,
while they all have pairs of stars where one is about a third the size of the
other, and why one of the pairs is so much further out compared to the other two pairs.
There is one other possibility to explaining this sextuple star system.
It is important to remember that they are not able to resolve the differences
between the pairs of stars in each system. So is it possible that what they see as
variability in luminosity is not caused by an eclipsing star at all, but instead
is caused by the flickering of the star itself? We know that our Sun undergoes a regular
change to its output, but this is on the order of years, not days.
What we do see is that all three star pairs seem to have a very similar
variation in their brightness, which is assumed to be caused by one
star passing in front of the other. Is it possible that all three stars are
connected somewhere to the same source of electrical power and that the circuit
has a similar resonant frequency for all of them? Until we are able to resolve the
differences between each pair of stars, it is not possible to know which of
these two scenarios is the more likely to have occurred. These types of unusual, almost miraculous
star systems, are slowly building a picture of how stars might evolve, not
just singly, but as pairs, or in this case up to six stars, and shows that the interaction of
the Birkeland currents together is an important aspect that must be considered.
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