News tagged with binary system

Related topics: 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

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

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

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

NASA's RXTE detect 'heartbeat' of smallest black hole candidate (w/ video)

(PhysOrg.com) -- An international team of astronomers has identified a candidate for the smallest-known black hole using data from NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE). The evidence comes from a specific ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Dec 15, 2011 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (11) | comments 27 | with audio podcast

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

'Zombie' stars key to measuring dark energy

"Zombie" stars that explode like bombs as they die, only to revive by sucking matter out of other stars. According to an astrophysicist at UC Santa Barbara, this isn't the plot for the latest 3D blockbuster ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jun 30, 2011 | popularity 3.2 / 5 (6) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

Gamma-ray emission from Terzan 5

(PhysOrg.com) -- The H.E.S.S. telescope system in Namibia discovered a new source of very-high-energy gamma-rays from the direction of the globular cluster Terzan 5. Being very likely located in the outer ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jun 24, 2011 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (4) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

Cygnus X-1: Blue supergiant pairs with black hole

Discovered in 1964 during a rocket flight, Cygnus X-1 holds the record for being the strongest X-ray source seen from Earth. The blue supergiant star designated as HDE 226868 is just part of this high-mass ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jun 23, 2011 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (5) | comments 2