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Chapter 17: Problem 24

What information about stars do astronomers learn from binary systems that cannot be learned in any other way? What measurements do they make of binary systems to garner this information?

Short Answer

Expert verified
Binary star systems allow astronomers to determine the mass of stars which is otherwise unmeasurable in solitary stars. Such measurements are made by observing the period and distance between the stars in the binary system.

Step by step solution

01

Understanding Binary Star systems

A binary star system consists of two stars that orbit a common center of mass. The stars may appear close together or may be too far to discern individually with the naked eye.
02

Unique Information from Binary Star System

In binary star systems, astronomers can determine the mass of stars. In astronomy, the mass of a star directly correlates with its life cycle and other properties like temperature, size and brightness. The mass of a star cannot be directly measured in solitary star systems.
03

Measurements in Binary Star System

Astronomers measure the period (the time it takes for the stars to orbit once around their common center of mass) and the distance between the stars in the binary system. These observations, along with Kepler's laws of planetary motion, allow astronomers to calculate the total mass of the system. From this, they deduce the individual masses of the stars.

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Most popular questions from this chapter

Sketch the light curve of an eclipsing binary consisting of two identical stars in highly elongated orbits oriented so that (a) their major axes are pointed toward the Earth and (b) their major axes are perpendicular to our line of sight.

Search the World Wide Web for information about Gaia, a European Space Agency (ESA) spacecraft planned to extend the work carried out by Hipparcos. When is the spacecraft planned to be launched? How will Gaia compare to Hippar\(\cos\) ? For how many more stars will it be able to measure parallaxes? What other types of research will it carry out?

The Sun experiences solar flares (see Section 16-10). The amount of energy radiated by even the strongest solar flare is not enough to have an appreciable effect on the Sun's luminosity. But when a flare of the same size occurs on a mainsequence star of spectral class \(M\), the star's brightness can increase by as much as a factor of 2 . Why should there be an appreciable increase in brightness for a main-sequence M star but not for the Sun?

Describe how the parallax method of finding a star's distance is similar to binocular (two-eye) vision in humans.

Give two reasons why a visual binary star is unlikely to also be a spectroscopic binary star.
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