Questions tagged [binary-star]
Questions regarding a pair of stars that are gravitationally bound and orbit around their barycenter.
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questions
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2answers
7k views
Is Sun a part of a binary system?
Does our Sun have a counterpart, i.e., is it a part of a binary-system? If so, how does the other star look like and where is it?
18
votes
2answers
570 views
What are the current observational constraints on the existence of Nemesis?
Nemesis is a hypothetical companion to the Sun on a very eccentric, long-period orbit. The star supposedly returns every few tens of millions years, driving comets into the inner solar system and ...
25
votes
4answers
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Are there any double stars that I can actually see orbit each other?
If I had a nice amateur telescope†, are there any multiple star systems that I could observe over a few years or a few decades and actually see the movement of one or both of them over time?
My short ...
13
votes
1answer
3k views
Why can't our Sun be a binary with Jupiter as a T or Y dwarf?
I just learned about Brown Dwarfs, they are "failed" stars, they narrowly missed the stellar mass mark. I learned that Y Dwarfs have temperature as low as 80 Fahrenheit (The first one found by WISE ...
19
votes
2answers
670 views
How many stars can stay close to each other without collapsing?
Is it possible for two stars to exist close to each other?
"Close" is relative; let's assume that two stars are close to each other if they are at the center of the same solar system.
It's ...
7
votes
2answers
474 views
What's the name for [the other kind of planet] in a binary star system?
This XKCD what-if talks about rainbows on planets in a binary star system. It points out that there are two types:
circumbinary planets, where the planet orbits far from and around both stars
[the ...
6
votes
3answers
169 views
What is the spectral reflectance of starlight in a close binary?
Ignore the Blender Monkey! (from here)
In a close-orbiting binary pair, a small but significant fraction of the light from each star falls upon the other, and the result has to be carefully modeled ...
8
votes
2answers
3k views
Multiple Star-system percentages
What are the percentages of systems that have x number of stars in them?
What I have found thus far is something like:
Single Star Sytems = 69%
Double Star Systems = ~10%
Triple Star Systems = <...
11
votes
1answer
2k views
Orbits in a binary star system
I know of three sets of stable orbits in a binary star system: orbiting closely around star A, orbiting closely around star B, or orbiting distantly around both stars (and their mutual center of ...
6
votes
1answer
184 views
Is it possible for two stars to be in a horseshoe orbit around a much larger star?
I was reading about how Saturn has two moons, Janus and Epimetheus, that swap orbits once every four years. Could something like this happen on a much larger scale, but with stars instead of a planet ...
13
votes
2answers
2k views
How are binary star systems created?
I don't know how common it is for a system to have two stars (or perhaps even more) but how do they arise? Is that due to the stellar accretion disc, or the composition of the stellar nebula?
Or are ...
9
votes
1answer
142 views
V471 Tauri's circumbinary brown dwarf non-observation; Applegate, or over-restrictive assumptions?
tl;dr Has the brown dwarf observation been disproven?
I have just started reading about the interesting object V471 Tauri. The first two sentences of the introduction to The V471 Tauri System: A ...
13
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4answers
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Will Sirius B start accreting from A and become a supernova type Ia?
Sirius B is a massive white dwarf of 1 Solar mass, orbiting at about 25 AU distance from the 2 Solar mass Sirius A. As it evolves and expands, will the A star start shedding matter to the white dwarf, ...
4
votes
1answer
191 views
Do planets form around lone stars, multiple stars, or both? Do we know this yet?
Since about 1990 astronomers been able to detect planets around other stars, using a couple different techniques, which is amazing.
By this point, do we know whether planets form only around single ...
3
votes
2answers
1k views
Is the angular resolution of a telescope irrespective of used eye-piece?
Suppose a telescope has aperture $D = 20$ cm. The angular resolution of such telescope, according to the Rayleigh criterion (if I have understood it correctly), is given by
$$\theta = 1.22\cdot\frac{...
3
votes
2answers
477 views
Filling the Roche Lobe
For mass transfer in a binary system, one star must fill its Roche lobe. What determines whether a star in a binary system will fill its Roche Lobe? How will I calculate it?
I can't find any ...
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vote
0answers
126 views
The black hole binary that was detected by advanced LIGO - how do such hypergiant binaries form?
With today's announcement of the historic detection of gravitational waves from the merger of 36 solar mass and 29 solar mass black holes 1.3 billion light years away, one can not help but wonder how ...
1
vote
1answer
118 views
Why do they think that WDJ0551+4135 is “snowman shaped” i.e. a contact binary?
The BBC's Huge 'space snowman' is two merging stars says
Researchers have discovered a huge snowman-shaped star with an atmospheric composition never seen before.
It is more massive than our Sun but ...
1
vote
1answer
104 views
State vectors of “interesting” multiple stars
I'd like to show a demonstration of Runge Kutta integration of real systems using examples of interesting multiple stars, where "interesting" means you can see through a small telescope that they are ...
0
votes
1answer
105 views
Are there any good images of Sirius B at apastron in the Sirius system?
Sirius B has a distance to Sirius A of 11 arc seconds at apastron; are there any good images of it at that point in its orbit?
