True or False 8. Almost all stars are in binary systems. The book says: "So far you have been considering the deaths of stars as if they were all single objects that never interact, but more than half of all stars are members of binary star systems."
True or False
8. Almost all stars are in binary systems. The book says: "So far you have been considering the deaths of stars as if they were all single objects that never interact, but more than half of all stars are members of binary star systems."
From this, I would not necessarily say that almost all stars are in binary systems based on this alone, but some other information I am finding says up to 85%. However, the numbers seem to be all over the map outside the course material, and I can not find a solid figure in it from what I have looked at.
If it helps, Stars and Galaxies, 10th Edition by Seeds and Beckman is my reference material.
The statement:
All stars are in binary systems. The book says: "So far you have been considering the deaths of the stars as if they aware all single objects that never interact, but more than half of all stars are members of binary star system."
Explanation:
Binary star: A binary star is simply a pair of stars whose components are too close to each other to be distinguished visually. They orbit with a common center of mass.
In the night sky, big and bright stars are always easier to spot even in naked eye by humans. Therefore, it is used to be considered that they are more likely to be a part of systems with many stars.
But in reality, there are more than 60% stars in the universe which are a single-star system. The reason is that more than 85% of stars are faint red dwarf stars, which are difficult to detect.
Another reason about the earlier theory, is that, the gravitational interaction between two bodies in space is quite stable. But, when there are three or more stars bounded by gravitational interaction, the system is fundamentally unstable and at some point, some stars may be expelled from the system.
Thus, there is no dominance in numbers of binary stars over single-stars.
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