Alpha Centauri: Two bright princesses and a red dwarf
Dan WildI remember as a teenager, blinking though binoculars, excited that I could just make out Alpha Centauri as a double star. Then I borrowed a low-end refractor telescope and could more easily make out the binary nature of the pair. It was the Jesuit, Father Jean Richaud (1633-1693), who first determined the binary using his …
Continue reading “Alpha Centauri: Two bright princesses and a red dwarf”
You can’t be Sirius? Actually, I’m Sirius B
Dan WildSirius is really two stars. A faint white dwarf, Sirius B, is locked in a dance with Sirius A, and it takes 50 years for them to orbit each other. Sirius B used to be a big guy: it was once a red giant. Except it doesn’t have quite the same mass as Betelgeuse, a …
Continue reading “You can’t be Sirius? Actually, I’m Sirius B”