Thermal Infrared Images of the Remarkable Young Nearby Multiple Star HD 98800

We present thermal infrared images of the unusual multiple stellar system HD 98800, which contains two double-star systems (A and B) separated by ≈0 8 in the north/south direction. This system may have formed in a recent burst of star formation in a very low mass cloud in the local solar neighborhood. Our images resolve the A and B components. Both A and B emit roughly equal fluxes at 4.71 μm, where radiation is primarily photospheric. The northern component (B) is about 3.7 times brighter than the southern component (A) at 9.78 μm where the radiation is due to thermal emission from dust, showing that 78% of the circumstellar dust in the system resides around component B. The two primary components are nearly identical K5 V pre-main-sequence stars, both with very significant amounts of dust emission. The dust system around the B component may have size, temperature, and possible structure analogous to those of a primitive zodiacal cloud.