{"id":48052,"date":"2025-05-24T15:30:49","date_gmt":"2025-05-24T10:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=48052"},"modified":"2025-05-29T16:20:17","modified_gmt":"2025-05-29T10:50:17","slug":"binary-star-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/binary-star-system\/","title":{"rendered":"Binary Star System"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Binary Star System Latest News<\/h2>\n<p>A large team of astronomers and astrophysicists affiliated with several institutions in China recently discovered a binary star system, where one of the stars is a millisecond pulsar and the other is made mostly of helium.<\/p>\n<h2>About Binary Star System<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>A binary star is a system of\u00a0<strong>two gravitationally bound stars<\/strong>\u00a0that\u00a0<strong>orbit a common center of mass\u00a0<\/strong>called a<strong>\u00a0barycenter.\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Stars in a binary system do\u00a0<strong>not necessarily have the same mass, size, or brightness.\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The\u00a0<strong>larger star<\/strong>\u00a0of a binary couple is called the\u00a0<strong>primary star,<\/strong>\u00a0while the\u00a0<strong>smaller one<\/strong>\u00a0is known as the<strong>\u00a0secondary star or the companion star.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Binary stars\u00a0<strong>are double stars<\/strong>, but\u00a0<strong>not all double stars are binary stars.\u00a0<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>This is because some\u00a0<strong>double stars\u00a0<\/strong>comprise two stars<strong>\u00a0close enough<\/strong>\u00a0in the sky over Earth\u00a0<strong>to appear as a single point of light<\/strong>, but they are\u00a0<strong>actually vastly separated\u00a0<\/strong>in space and\u00a0<strong>not part of a gravitationally bound\u00a0<\/strong>binary system\u2013these are called\u00a0<strong>optical doubles.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Unlike the sun,<\/strong>\u00a0the vast\u00a0<strong>majority of stars have a binary partner.\u00a0<\/strong>It is estimated that around\u00a0<strong>85% of stars exist in binary star systems<\/strong>\u00a0or systems with three or more stars.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Binary star systems can also\u00a0<strong>include systems containing a normal star and a stellar remnant,<\/strong>\u00a0an object that forms when a star runs out of the fuel for nuclear fusion and collapses under its own gravity.\u00a0\n<ul>\n<li>These dense and compact star &#8220;corpses&#8221;\u00a0<strong>can include white dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes.\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Especially\u00a0<strong>ancient binary systems can contain two stellar remnants<\/strong>\u00a0orbiting each other.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>In some binary systems,<\/strong>\u00a0the\u00a0<strong>stars are so close\u00a0<\/strong>together that\u00a0<strong>they exchange material.\u00a0<\/strong>This mass transfer occurs when the<strong>\u00a0radius of one star<\/strong>\u00a0is\u00a0<strong>not much smaller than<\/strong>\u00a0the\u00a0<strong>orbital separation between the stars.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Binary Star System FAQs<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Q1:<\/strong>\u00a0What is a binary star system?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ans:<\/strong>\u00a0It is a system of two gravitationally bound stars that orbit a common center of mass called a barycenter.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Q2:<\/strong>\u00a0What is the common center of mass around which binary stars orbit called?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ans:<\/strong>\u00a0Barycenter<\/p>\n<p><strong>Q3:<\/strong>\u00a0When can mass transfer occur between stars in a binary system?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ans:<\/strong>\u00a0When the radius of one star is not much smaller than the orbital separation between the stars.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source<\/strong>:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2025-05-binary-star-millisecond-pulsar-helium.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">PHYS<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A binary star is a system of two stars gravitationally bound, orbiting a shared center of mass known as the barycenter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":48053,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[533,21,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-48052","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-binary-star-system","9":"tag-prelims-pointers","10":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","11":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48052\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}