Most massive overcontact binary

VFTS 352 is a binary star system in the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud around 160,000 light years away. They have a combined mass of around 57 times that of the Sun and orbit each other so close that they overlap and share material. Known as an overcontact binary, these two massive stars are only around 12 million km apart, and orbit their common centre of mass once a day.

The fate of these two stars is that they will either merge and explode in a supernova, or they will explode separately as supernovae, forming two black holes. If they do merge, it is likely to occur within the next 600,000 years. The two stars are very hot, with surface temperatures of around 40,000 C.

This discovery was published on 13 October 2015.