Using 14 years of high resolution near-infrared imaging, radio observations of molecular gas, and a hydrodynamic simulation the authors show that spiral arms seen in the protoplanetary disk around HD 100453 A are caused by its M-dwarf companion.
A white dwarf binary system that sometimes shows evidence of a magnetic field — but only some of the time.
The fraction of binary stars has implications in many fields of astronomy. Yet, we still don’t know this number, and even less how it varies with properties such as metallicity. Today’s paper sheds some light on this open question.
Image credits: Palomar Observatory/STScI/WikiSky
A peculiar X-ray binary may contain the first known white dwarf which is still in the process of contracting.
When it zips past the Galactic Center black hole in 2018, how would a possible binarity of the star S0-2 affect the detectability of its relativistic motion?
In Be/X-ray binaries — systems in which a Be star spins so fast that it throws its own matter away towards its neutron star companion — it’s possible for accretion discs to form that spin backwards. What does this mean for the stars?