Have you been star gazing with your Blaster at night in this beautiful fall season? Read on to find out what some of the clustering you see in the night sky means, and share this amazing finding with your kid!
In astronomy jargon, a double star is a pair of stars that appear to be close to one another when viewed through an optical telescope from Earth. There are three types of double stars: a binary star, which is when two stars are bound to each other gravitationally by a mutual orbit; an optical double, which indicates that two stars are aligned with each other in the sky but at different distances; and non-visual binaries, which is similar to binary stars but can only be seen with obscurity, for example, some stars may be blocked by an eclipse, and therefore, the view shows only two stars.
Triple stars, or multiple stars, refers to three or more stars appearing in the sky in close proximity with each other. Similar to the double stars, multiple stars that are gravitationally bound to one another are known as physical multiple stars, and ones that only appears to be closely linked to one another without any binding force is called optical multiple stars.
How do these two forms of star systems have anything to do with the most recent astronomy breakthrough? Astronomers’ latest discovery found that a star system only 25 light years away from Earth called Fomalhaut, is found to be one of the wildest triple stars known. By analyzing and measuring the precise movement and distance of the stars, the astronomers are able to determine the speed and location of the third star. They reached the conclusion that this third star is part of the Fomalhaut system, which overthrew the previous predicament that the Fomalhaut system consists only of double stars.
The Fomalhaut system contains a massive star that is the largest and widest amongst our nearby star systems. This star, named Fomalhaut A, is twice the mass of our Sun, and is effortless pulling onto the third star, known as Fomalhaut C, through the gravitational force of the mutual orbit.
These stars are said to shine much brighter than our brightest star, Sirius, and younger than the age of our solar system, about 440 million years-old.
Filed under: Current Events, Just for Fun, Newsletter, Science Facts | Tagged: Astronomy, Binary Stars, Double Stars, Fomalhaut, Gravitational pull, Gravity, Multiple Stars, optical stars, Sirius, Star Gazing, Star Systems, Triple Stars | 4 Comments »
