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Binary star. The well-known binary star Sirius, seen here in a Hubble photograph from 2005, with Sirius A in the center, and white dwarf, Sirius B, to the left bottom from it. A binary star or binary star system is a system of two stars that are gravitationally bound to and in orbit around each other. Binary stars in the night sky that are seen ...
A binary system is a system of two astronomical bodies of the same kind that are comparable in size. Definitions vary, but typically require the center of mass to be located outside of either object. (See animated examples.) The most common kinds of binary system are binary stars and binary asteroids, but brown dwarfs, planets, neutron stars ...
A star system of two stars is known as a binary star, binary star system or physical double star. If there are no tidal effects, no perturbation from other forces, and no transfer of mass from one star to the other, such a system is stable, and both stars will trace out an elliptical orbit around the barycenter of the system indefinitely.
Sirius is a binary star system consisting of two white stars orbiting each other with a separation of about 20 AU [e] (roughly the distance between the Sun and Uranus) and a period of 50.1 years. The brighter component, termed Sirius A, is a main-sequence star of spectral type early A , with an estimated surface temperature of 9,940 K . [ 14 ]
A visual binary is a gravitationally bound binary star system [1] that can be resolved into two stars. These stars are estimated, via Kepler 's third law, to have periods ranging from a few years to thousands of years. A visual binary consists of two stars, usually of a different brightness. Because of this, the brighter star is called the ...
Procyon is a binary star system with a bright primary component, Procyon A, having an apparent magnitude of 0.34, [3] and a faint companion, Procyon B, at magnitude 10.7. [4] The pair orbit each other with a period of 40.84 years along an elliptical orbit with an eccentricity of 0.4, [ 13 ] more eccentric than Mercury 's.
Roche lobe. This is a schematic of a semidetached binary system with the larger component filling its Roche lobe (black line). In astronomy, the Roche lobe is the region around a star in a binary system within which orbiting material is gravitationally bound to that star. It is an approximately teardrop-shaped region bounded by a critical ...
Cor Caroli / ˌkɔːr ˈkærəlaɪ / is a binary star designated Alpha Canum Venaticorum or α Canum Venaticorum. The International Astronomical Union uses the name "Cor Caroli" specifically for the brighter star of the binary. [17] Alpha Canum Venaticorum is the brightest point of light in the northern constellation of Canes Venatici.