6 ms·
Wait, it's only 5 million years old? That seems ludicrously young given astronomical timescales. I'm also curious how such a thing came to be. How did we get a
by ender7 15y ago
Wait, it's only 5 million years old? That seems ludicrously young given astronomical timescales.
I'm also curious how such a thing came to be. How did we get a binary system with a much smaller, and presumably much older star (since it is now a black hole), accompanied by a much larger, younger star?
- lutorm 15y agoActually, the stars were very likely created together. The star that made the black hole was likely much more massive. More massive stars have shorter lifetimes than less massive ones (because the luminosity and consequently the rate of fuel burning goes as something like M^3.5), so it died before the companion.