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Author Topic: Question: Is Octuple Star System Possible?  (Read 9488 times)

BlurryVortices

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Question: Is Octuple Star System Possible?
« on: July 21, 2015, 10:15:45 PM »
the Largest stable star system we've ever discovered is Castor, a Sextuplet star system. but is it possible for Octuple Star System to exist? or even higher one like Nonuple Star system?

Cryo

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Re: Question: Is Octuple Star System Possible?
« Reply #1 on: July 24, 2015, 07:35:12 AM »
THE POSSIBILITIES ARE NEVER ENDING! (Short answer) if six stars can have a stable orbit around each other then there's no reason why seven or more cant....

Gordon Freeman

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Re: Question: Is Octuple Star System Possible?
« Reply #2 on: July 25, 2015, 07:31:06 PM »
I guess eventually things become unstable in real life, but on paper there isn't really a limit as to how many stars can be in  a system.

Darvince

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Re: Question: Is Octuple Star System Possible?
« Reply #3 on: July 25, 2015, 09:26:26 PM »
Having a 9 star system is trivially easy, say, Star 1+2 orbit each other, Star 3 orbits the barycenter of 1+2, and 1+2+3 orbit 4, which is orbited by a pair 5+6, and star 7 also orbits 4, and star 8+9 orbit this entire system's barycenter. For an eight star system, you could have some sort of nesting with 4 binary pairs, where 1+2 and 3+4 orbit each other, and 5+6 and 7+8 orbit each other, and all eight stars orbit the common barycenter of the system.

atomic7732

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Re: Question: Is Octuple Star System Possible?
« Reply #4 on: July 25, 2015, 10:12:20 PM »
i would say an 8 star system is probably pretty possible, as there are two potential 7 star systems. if you have something on the scale of mizar & alcor it might be really possible though could be really unstable

blotz

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Re: Question: Is Octuple Star System Possible?
« Reply #5 on: July 26, 2015, 08:26:19 AM »
what if all the stars are orbiting each other

Darvince

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Re: Question: Is Octuple Star System Possible?
« Reply #6 on: July 26, 2015, 08:58:35 AM »
but that's what i just described

blotz

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Re: Question: Is Octuple Star System Possible?
« Reply #7 on: July 26, 2015, 10:27:00 AM »
no i mean all the stars in the universe

Cryo

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Re: Question: Is Octuple Star System Possible?
« Reply #8 on: July 26, 2015, 01:10:07 PM »
then there would be a super massive binary center but Where?

blotz

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Re: Question: Is Octuple Star System Possible?
« Reply #9 on: July 26, 2015, 05:12:13 PM »
the Great Attractor

Darvince

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Re: Question: Is Octuple Star System Possible?
« Reply #10 on: July 26, 2015, 05:27:18 PM »
it was discovered that our local supercluster is bigger than we thought which completely explains the great attractor

Physics_Hacker

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Re: Question: Is Octuple Star System Possible?
« Reply #11 on: August 07, 2015, 06:28:43 PM »
Well there are hundreds of stars in open star clusters, which all orbit a barycenter, so...

omegshi147

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Re: Question: Is Octuple Star System Possible?
« Reply #12 on: August 09, 2015, 11:13:55 AM »
the Largest stable star system we've ever discovered is Castor, a Sextuplet star system. but is it possible for Octuple Star System to exist? or even higher one like Nonuple Star system?

You can count Sag A* as a star system with over 10 stars; just that it is orbiting a black hole.  :P

Physics_Hacker

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Re: Question: Is Octuple Star System Possible?
« Reply #13 on: August 10, 2015, 11:35:04 AM »
Uh, make that 4 billion since all the stars in our galaxy orbit Sag A*?

Darvince

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Re: Question: Is Octuple Star System Possible?
« Reply #14 on: August 10, 2015, 01:38:18 PM »
No, actually, 99.99999% of stars in the milky way don't orbit Sag A* but rather orbit the total mass of the center of the galaxy, and for a majority of those their speed is boosted by dark matter.

Physics_Hacker

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Re: Question: Is Octuple Star System Possible?
« Reply #15 on: August 11, 2015, 01:38:45 PM »
Okay, but the single largest mass that any one object orbits is Sag A*, other than the combined barycenter...