Italian amateur astronomers discover a pair of 'ballerinas' stars

Discovery of a pair of cosmic dancers: they are two stars that dance around each other about 25 thousand light years from the Sun, in the constellation of Auriga. The discovery was published in the bulletin of the American Association of Variable Star Observers (Aavso), the association that publishes and collects the discovery of these star systems.

The discovery is entirely Italian, thanks to Giorgio Mazzacurati and Paolo Zampolini, from the Galileo Galilei amateur astronomy group, from Giuseppe Conzo and Mara Moriconi, from the Palidoro amateur astronomy group, from Giorgio Bianciardi, from the University of Siena and from the Italian Amateur Astronomers Union (IU) , and of Nello Ruocco, of the Nastro Verde Observatory. The two frantic dancers rotate around each other in 9 hours and 54 minutes, eclipsing each other. By observing the light emitted by these stars, amateur astronomers have in fact identified two eclipses: in this way they have been able to understand that it is a binary system. The pair is called Gunvag2 and is made up of different colored stars.

"We think it is a main yellow star, which takes matter away from its partner, perhaps a red star", explains Giuseppe Conzo. The binary system, the authors of the discovery conclude, is still being studied and only in the next few months will its characteristics be known more precisely.