Sandrine Ceurstemont, editor, New Scientist TV
The sun isn't an only child. When it was born 4.6 billion years ago, it came to life alongside a whole brood of siblings.
Now a simulation by astrophysicist Matthew Bate from the University of Exeter in the UK shows what the star birth might have looked like by realistically replicating the thermodynamics involved. The video starts with a turbulent cloud of hydrogen and helium gas that eventually forms a dense core when enough energy is lost. Stars and brown dwarfs begin to form in this region, shown as white dots in the clip. The siblings interact with each other, causing many to be ejected from the cloud, just as the sun was expelled before giving rise to our solar system.
In this visualisation, a massive cluster of 183 stars is produced. "Typical stars in our galaxy are thought to have formed in a cluster of a few hundred to a few thousand stars," says Bate. "So from a statistical point of view, the sun may well have formed in such a region with multiple siblings."
Astronomers are now trying to locate the sun's missing nursery-mates, which should be shining somewhere in the Milky Way. To find out more about the quest, you can read our full-length feature, "Searching for the sun's long-lost siblings".
If you enjoyed this video, watch the Milky Way form and evolve or check out a simulation that shows how early stars are likely to have formed in pairs.