Astronomers observe how two suns collect matter in a binary system
(PHYSorg.com Space & Earth)

Stars are born in the midst of large clouds of gas and dust. Local densifications first form `embryos,` which then collect matter and grow. But how exactly does this accretion process work? And what happens when two stars form in a disk of matter? High-resolution images of a young stellar binary system for the first time reveal a complex network of accretion filaments nurturing two protostars at the center of the circumbinary disk. With these observations, an international team of astronomers led by the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics was able to identify a two-level accretion process, circumbinary disk to circumstellar disk to stars, constraining the conditions leading to the formation and evolution of binary star systems.