Textbook Stars

    The night sky is rarely recognized for its beauty, much less the dynamics behind it. We see a pretty star, say a few oohs and aahs, and we move on with the rest of our lives. What we fail to recognize are the many complexities behind the bright twinkles of light that contrast the dark sky. We all have this stuck-up notion that the only star we acknowledge is the sun because without it we would all be dead. Contrary to many people's beliefs, however, including mine, stars hold so much more than just their cosmic beauty, as seen in their unique motions.

    Known as double stars, binary stars orbit around each other, being held together by a combined gravitational pull. They revolve around each other, unable to ever have contact because if so, it could lead to a supernova explosion. I guess you could call them star-crossed lovers. Let's just hope it's not another retelling of Shakespeare. Anyways, these stars allow us to better  measure stellar masses. A star's mass translates into its gravitational pull and many of its other influential characteristics. By finding the gravitational pull of the two stars, we can work reversely to find the mass of each. The mass of a star is also directly correlated to its nature, meaning it controls how long it lives along with how it may change with passing time. Luckily, these aspects of a star are incredibly easy to learn as more than 40% of stars revolve in a companion-like orbit. Some, like the sun, do exist outside of pairs, however, this concept can still be applied to other close orbits, such as planets. Rather than getting our heads out of the clouds, we need to remain there until the sun rises again. There are many more discoveries to made and plenty of stars to help.

Albireo