DOUBLESTAR

Double star

In observational astronomy, a double star is a pair of stars that appear close to each other in the sky as seen from Earth when viewed through an optical telescope. This can happen either because the pair forms a binary star, i.e. a binary system of stars in mutual orbit, gravitationally bound to each other, or because it is an optical double, a chance alignment of two stars in the sky that lie at different distances. Binary stars are important to stellar astronomers as knowledge of their motions allows direct calculation of stellar mass and other stellar parameters.

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double star

Noun

  1. Two stars which form a stellar system, such that they orbit the point of equilibrium of their gravitational fields; a binary star.
  2. Two stars that appear to be one when seen with the naked eye, either because they orbit one another (binary stars) or happen to be in the same line of sight even though they are separated by a great distance (optical binaries).


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: double star
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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