binary stars
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How Massive is the Milky Way?
Over centuries of philosophy and research, through the times of the classical astronomers to Galileo’s observations of the Milky Way, humanity’s understanding of our universe has evolved from a simple model of the sun and planets to a vast wheel…
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Unique Neutron Stars
Neutron stars — the compact remains of massive stars that have gone supernova — are some of the most extreme objects in the universe, narrowly beaten by black holes (and, as we’ll talk about in future posts, active galaxies and…
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Binary Neutron Stars
Way back when we spent a number of posts surveying the stars, we covered binary systems. These are star systems that contain multiple stars. Imagine if our sun had a companion, and two stars rose and set in our sky…
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What About Binary Systems?
In the constellation of Perseus, there is a star named Algol that exists in a binary system. The binary consists of two stars: a massive main-sequence star and a less massive giant. According to what we’ve explored so far…that doesn’t…
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Star Mass and Density
What makes a star shine bright? Much earlier on — probably months ago now — I explained how something called the proton-proton chain generates massive amounts of energy within stars, and enables them to fuel whole solar systems. That’s the battery…
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Eclipsing Binary Stars
Imagine a frisbee. At the center of this frisbee lies the sun — our sun, for simplicity’s sake. And sprinkled around the surface of its disk are all nine…excuse me, eight…planets of the solar system, plus the dwarf planets, asteroids, moons,…
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Spectroscopic Binary Stars
Consider a solar system far different from our own. A solar system governed by two suns, and consisting of planets we can only dream of. Would it surprise you to hear that, based on recent discoveries, that might actually be…
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Visual Binary Stars
Here’s a visual binary that just about stretches the limits of the definition. It’s a star, though you’ll never see it like this with the naked eye. Specifically, this is Sirius, the brightest star in the sky. But if you…
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Binary Stars
We know how big stars are; they range from the size of the Earth to over a thousand times the size of the sun (which is in itself over one hundred times the size of the Earth). We know they’re…
