July 2, 2017

The IRAS 04191+1523 system (Image ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), Lee et al., ESA/Herschel/PACS)

An article published in the journal “Nature Astronomy” describes a study of the IRAS 04191+1523 system, consisting of two low-mass newborn stars. A team of astronomers led by Jeong-Eun Lee of Kyung Hee University, Korea, used the ALMA radio telescope to figure out how pairs of little stars form. The discovery that the two stars’ rotation axes are misaligned led them to conclude that a turbulence caused the fragmentation of the gas cloud from which they were born.