Timeline for Could two stars of equivalent mass/size form a binary system and be different colors?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
12 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Feb 19, 2016 at 21:13 | comment | added | Kyle | @type_outcast As HDE226868 mentioned, the foci don't look like they're lined up. Not that this really matters too much, but probably what makes it the most noticeable is that the two ellipses don't have collinear semi-major axes. In a 2-body system the semi-major axis of both orbits will always line up. | |
| Jan 5, 2016 at 15:06 | comment | added | type_outcast | To anyone interested in playing around with binary orbital mechanics in a more visual way, I just found a great online eclipsing binary simulator. "Eclipsing" simply means that from our point of view on Earth, one star passes in front of the other. So, to get a more relevant "top down" view, change the "inclination" to zero. | |
| Jan 5, 2016 at 15:01 | comment | added | type_outcast | @ConfusedMerlin Absolutely, it is possible! Companion stars do sometimes collide or merge, however it just doesn't happen very often. We don't know the exact number, but around half of the stars near us are in multiple-star systems, which have been circling a common point for billions of years, each making millions to billions of orbits in that time, yet we've observed comparatively little historical evidence of collision outside of dense stellar clusters, such as supernovae Ia remnants, blue stragglers, and some black holes. | |
| Jan 5, 2016 at 13:13 | comment | added | Confused Merlin | One dumb question - wouldn't that S-Type system be prone to spontaneous selfdestruction? Uhm... you said this may be a scratch, but what happens if booth stars meet at the () Intersection? Shouldn't they pull each other out of orbit? | |
| Jan 3, 2016 at 22:43 | comment | added | HDE 226868♦ | Wait, you made it yourself? Wow, that's awesome! | |
| Jan 3, 2016 at 20:27 | comment | added | type_outcast | @HDE226868 Thanks! It was a quick sketch, and I just kind of eyeballed the ellipses' foci. The barycentre would be in the center of the small ()-shaped wedge where the big pink orbit and the big blue orbit intersect (assume the stars have roughly equal masses). Possible it's off a little bit, but looks about right to me? | |
| Jan 3, 2016 at 15:21 | vote | accept | Xandar The Zenon | ||
| Jan 3, 2016 at 14:36 | vote | accept | Xandar The Zenon | ||
| Jan 3, 2016 at 15:21 | |||||
| Jan 3, 2016 at 14:36 | comment | added | Xandar The Zenon | Thanks for your answer, it really helped. At this point I'll just kind of drop the sunrise/sunset thing and go with an elliptical orbit around a pair of binary stars. | |
| Jan 3, 2016 at 14:19 | comment | added | HDE 226868♦ | Really excellent answer. I just have one concern: In the image for s-type orbits, it doesn't quite look like the orbits of the two stars share the same focus, which should be the case. Am I looking at the image wrong? | |
| Jan 3, 2016 at 7:30 | history | edited | type_outcast | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
In re-reading my answer, I realized I oversimplified the possible configurations (far) too much. Remedied that with this edit, I hope...
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| Jan 3, 2016 at 5:20 | history | answered | type_outcast | CC BY-SA 3.0 |