News tagged with binary stars

Capturing planets

(Phys.org) -- The discovery of planets around other stars has led to the realization that alien solar systems often have bizarre features - at least they seem bizarre to us because they were so unexpected. ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created May 22, 2012 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (4) | comments 4 | with audio podcast

Astronomers discovered ancient Egyptian observations of a variable star

The study of the "Demon star", Algol, made by a research group of the University of Helsinki, Finland, has received both scientific and public attention. The period of the brightness variation of this eclipsing binary star ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created May 16, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (8) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Ultra-cool companion helps reveal giant planets

(Phys.org) -- An international team of astronomers led by David Pinfield of the University of Hertfordshire has found a brown dwarf that is more than 99% hydrogen and helium. Described as ultra-cool, it has ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created May 10, 2012 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (6) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Cairo Calendar shows Egyptians discovered binary Algol first

(Phys.org) -- Algol, aka the Demon Star, is actually a binary star in the Perseus constellation, and has been the subject of speculation for hundreds of years. Now a group of Finnish researchers propose that ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created May 02, 2012 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (5) | comments 5 | with audio podcast report

Young stars at home in ancient cluster

(PhysOrg.com) -- Looking like a hoard of gems fit for an emperor's collection, this deep sky object called NGC 6752 is in fact far more worthy of admiration. It is a globular cluster, and at over 10 billion ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Feb 09, 2012 | popularity 4 / 5 (2) | comments 8

When stars play planetary pinball

Many of us remember playing pinball at the local arcade while growing up; it turns out that some stars like it as well. Binary stars can play tug-of-war with an unfortunate planet, flinging it into a wide ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Feb 08, 2012 | popularity 4 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Stellar astrophysics explains the behavior of fast rotating neutron stars in binary systems

Pulsars are among the most exotic celestial bodies known. They have diameters of about 20 kilometres, but at the same time roughly the mass of our sun. A sugar-cube sized piece of its ultra-compact matter ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Feb 02, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (7) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

Binary star system found by following gamma-ray signal

(PhysOrg.com) -- To find a binary star system, which is where two stars are in close proximity to one another, astronomers have traditionally relied on pure luck. They’d first start studying what would look like a single ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jan 13, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast report

New class of planetary systems: Astronomers find two new planets orbiting double suns

Using data from NASA’s Kepler Mission, astronomers announced the discovery of two new transiting “circumbinary” planet systems -- planets that orbit two stars. This work establishes that such ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jan 11, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (10) | comments 12 | with audio podcast

Space Image: Fastest rotating star found in neighboring galaxy

This artist's concept pictures the fastest rotating star found to date.

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Dec 30, 2011 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (4) | comments 0

In a star's final days, astronomers hunt 'signal of impending doom'

(PhysOrg.com) -- An otherwise nondescript binary star system in the Whirlpool Galaxy has brought astronomers tantalizingly close to their goal of observing a star just before it goes supernova.

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 30, 2011 | popularity 4.1 / 5 (13) | comments 8 | with audio podcast

NASA's Fermi finds youngest millisecond pulsar, 100 pulsars to date

An international team of scientists using NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has discovered a surprisingly powerful millisecond pulsar that challenges existing theories about how these objects form.

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 04, 2011 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (6) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

How single stars lost their companions

(PhysOrg.com) -- Not all stars are loners. In our home galaxy, the Milky Way, about half of all stars have a companion and travel through space in a binary system. But explaining why some stars are in double ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Sep 15, 2011 | popularity 3.3 / 5 (3) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Team finds Type Ia supernovae parents

Type Ia supernovae are violent stellar explosions whose brightness is used to determine distances in the universe. Observing these objects to billions of light years away has led to the discovery that the universe is expanding ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Aug 11, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (6) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Two more kepler planets confirmed

Hot on the heels of confirming one Kepler planet, the Hobby-Eberly Telescope announces the confirmation of another planet. Another observatory, the Nordic Optical Telescope, confirms its first Kepler planet ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Aug 08, 2011 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (14) | comments 0 | with audio podcast