Sunny Priyan
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captures a dazzling triple-star system, made up of HP Tau, HP Tau G2, and HP Tau G3, shining from the heart of a reflection nebula.
HP Tau is a young T Tauri star, still evolving into a hydrogen-fueled star like our Sun, and surrounded by the dust and gas from its formation.
As with all variable stars, HP Tau’s brightness changes over time. T Tauri stars are known to have both periodic and random fluctuations in brightness.
The random variations in HP Tau’s brightness may result from instabilities in its accretion disk, material consumption, surface flares, or rotating sunspots.
The cloud of gas and dust surrounding the stars shines with reflected light, as a reflection nebula does not emit its own light but glows from nearby stars' illumination.
HP Tau, located 550 light-years away in Taurus, was studied by Hubble to explore protoplanetary disks that evolve into planets over time.