Celestia Forums

MKruer wrote:I guess so, I would have though that if they did exist, they would not last long, but apparently (according to Google) 1% of all binary are contact.

Thanks for the link, and I found an explanation for the Brain-Dead
HERE.

To quote a somewhat familiar Vulcan character...

Fascinating.

Thanks, Brain-Dead

Wouldn't it be nice if we could get something like this in Celestia?
(hint)

Sorry to ask agian but can they (blue stars) be close to or the same size of the sun? like 2.4x bigger then the sun?

How blue are you trying to get? At 2.4 times the size (not mass) you are at the very lower limit of a blue star where it becomes classified as a blue-white star. Stellar classification is not absolute, and the stars can fluctuate by as much as 20-30% off of the standard stellar classification. Our Sun is a good example, its classified as a G2, but using stellar classification, it could be classified anywhere from a G0-G5 based upon how you are trying to measure it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_classification

Tharghana:
If I'm not mistaken, a blue star of comparable size to the sun would be so dense that the other star would be absorbed, and if you are wondering about color, most of the lighter star's matter would probably stay on the surface, but I think it would remain blue.

Subdwarf B stars are blue, and small. V391 Peg, for example, which has a planetary candidate. I believe that star is smaller than Sol.

BobHegwood wrote:

Hungry4info wrote:Tharghana, there exists a type of close binary called a contact binary. Two stars that orbit very close together can cause the photospheres of the other to beocme extended towards the other star. The result is two stars that are in contact.

Pardon the interruption from the Brain-Dead, but how is such a
thing possible?

Do you mean to say that these two stars orbit each other at such
a pace that a merge and/or explosion does NOT occur?

How can this be? I'll have a search for contact binaries, but I simply
was not aware that this was possible.

Thanks for the information, Bob

Hi, Bob. Found something similar here:

http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/neb ... r2006054d/

Only 51.4 ly from earth is Castor C which is almost an example of this. (The 2 stars are only 0.018 AU apart and orbit each other every 19.5 hours)

Download it here: http://celestiaproject.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12104

ajtribick wrote:

V838 Monocerotis is a very young system - these stars may not have managed to form planets yet.

One hypothesis is that one of the planets orbiting V838 Monocerotis collided with the star, followed by at least one more - such reactions can cause a huge, violent outburst.