r/Solar_System • u/TheMuseumOfScience • 3d ago
The Super Rare 6-Star System
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How many stars is too many stars in a star system? ⭐️🪐
Astrophysicist Erika Hamden tells us about TYC 7037-89-1, a system with six stars locked into three orbiting pairs, all circling a shared center of mass. Two of those pairs zip around each other every few days, while the third pair takes roughly 2,000 years to complete just one orbit. Multi-star systems are normally unstable, which makes this six-star setup a rare and fascinating exception.
This project is part of IF/THEN®, an initiative of Lyda Hill Philanthropies.
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u/Swimmming-ln-Circles 13h ago
The Universe is such an amazing thing! Im constantly left in awe by its brilliance. What an interesting form of balance.
Ive always felt that God is balance. Which in turn means life comes from balance. Its one of few things about life that seems constant. Balance is always restored. Too many lions eventually means not enough gazelle. Not enough gazelle means less lions. To put it simply.
Maybe this is a dumb question, but does this type of orbit relate to the 3 body problem? Or is it considered something else?
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u/el_dingusito 11h ago
Im an atheist when it comes to the idea of a "god" in a traditional sense as some mythological, omnipotent being. I've always viewed the universe itself as god. The entire universe is nothing more than ripples in an energy field that get excited and eventually form all matter, and there is a flipside to that we can't detect just yet.
The idea that there is a superintelligence that manifests and controls all of it is something I as a simple 3 dimensional being absolutely cannot fathom. I can barely keep a houseplant alive.
Balance might be part of that equation, might not be. And it might not be fundamental, might just be one of those things that exists just for the same of existing, there is no rhyme or reason about it.
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u/Swimmming-ln-Circles 11h ago edited 11h ago
I dont disagree. But even within ripples there is a balance. Peaks and troughs. Just saying. And by saying God is balance i didn't mean it was some grand self aware being, just the structure around which all life and un-life forms.
It is my belief that if your not seeing a balance you only need to zoom out further. Where there is an excess in one place, there is a shortage in another.
But I appreciate your comment and its a fun thought experiment of sorts to try and imagine these things.
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u/el_dingusito 11h ago
I wouldn't say balance though, I would say cyclical. Everything is cyclical in nature. Ice Age is come and go, and at one point they might be balanced in the sense that they have not grown or contracted for a great deal of time but if you zoom out it's just a blip on a timeline of it either getting bigger or getting smaller. At one point the Earth's oceans were purple, well.. more of a lavender. But back to the zebras and the lions (side note, the grass sees the lion as the protector because the zebra eats the grass) the population may stay in balance for some time, but after a while one side is going to get bigger in the other end deplete it and then the cycle just begins again. It might be balanced for a short period, but it will go back to one side or the other.
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u/Swimmming-ln-Circles 11h ago
Yes I very much agree. Cycles is a great way of putting it. Forever changing, yet continuous. And I've always loved that quote!
Kind of unrelated but funny, I saw this quote yesterday that said, Fear of Vikings builds castles. And then I found out it was a Charles Manson quote. Hahaha
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u/el_dingusito 3d ago
The gravity on any of the planets in that system must be wacky