Rare system of five stars discovered

Astronomers have discovered a very rare system of five connected stars. The quintuplet consists of a pair of closely linked stars - binaries - one of which has a lone companion; it is the first known system of its kind.

The pair of stars orbit around a mutual centre of gravity, but are separated by more than the distance of Pluto's orbit around the Sun. When the stars pass in front of one another, they produce a regular pattern of pairs of dips in the light curve.

Data from the new system revealed the existence of two binary stars, one of which was a so-called contact binary. The other star pair - a detached binary - has a separation distance of some three million km. The two binaries orbit in the same plane at a distance of 21 billion km. Follow-up observations of different wavelengths of light coming from the star system uncovered a fifth star, which is linked to the detached binary star...

"This is a truly exotic star system. In principle there's no reason why it couldn't have planets in orbit around each of the pairs of stars. Any inhabitants would have a sky that would put the makers of Star Wars to shame,"

[link to www.bbc.com]