Keele UniversityFaculty of Natural Sciences
Physics & Astrophysics
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Keele astrophysicist in discovery of red giant and two red dwarfs
Keele astrophysicist, John Taylor, is a member of an international group of European, Australian and American researchers who have reported on the discovery of a unique system of stars in a paper published in the Science magazine.
The object, officially labelled HD 18106 but dubbed Trinity by the research team, is one of the brightest stars observed by the NASA Kepler planet-hunting space telescope. Whilst seemingly single, it is a complex triple system in which three stars reside in a very special geometry, showing mutual eclipses as each of the stars passes behind or in front of the others. The most luminous object is a giant star, around which a close pair of two red dwarfs orbit with a period of 45.5 days.
John, pictured, was responsible for analysis of the data from the Kepler satellite, which was difficult due to the huge differences between the three stars. Whilst the giant star is over three times the mass and twelve time the size of the Sun, the two red dwarfs are both smaller and cooler than our Sun and so are hard to detect.
"This is one of the most challenging objects which I have ever worked on," said John, "and if it were not for the Kepler satellite we would never even have found the two red dwarf stars in the first place."
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