18.2 Measuring stellar masses

Learning objectives

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Distinguish the different types of binary star systems
• Understand how we can apply Newton’s version of Kepler’s third law to derive the sum of star mass es in a binary star system
• Apply the relationship between stellar mass and stellar luminosity to determine the physical characteristics of a star

The mass of a star—how much material it contains—is one of its most important characteristics. If we know a star’s mass, as we shall see, we can estimate how long it will shine and what its ultimate fate will be. Yet the mass of a star is very difficult to measure directly. Somehow, we need to put a star on the cosmic equivalent of a scale.

Luckily, not all stars live like the Sun, in isolation from other stars. About half the stars are binary stars    —two stars that orbit each other, bound together by gravity. Masses of binary stars can be calculated from measurements of their orbits, just as the mass of the Sun can be derived by measuring the orbits of the planets around it (see Orbits and Gravity ).

Binary stars

Before we discuss in more detail how mass can be measured, we will take a closer look at stars that come in pairs. The first binary star was discovered in 1650, less than half a century after Galileo began to observe the sky with a telescope. John Baptiste Riccioli (1598–1671), an Italian astronomer, noted that the star Mizar, in the middle of the Big Dipper’s handle, appeared through his telescope as two stars. Since that discovery, thousands of binary stars have been cataloged. (Astronomers call any pair of stars that appear to be close to each other in the sky double stars , but not all of these form a true binary, that is, not all of them are physically associated. Some are just chance alignments of stars that are actually at different distances from us.) Although stars most commonly come in pairs, there are also triple and quadruple systems.

One well-known binary star is Castor, located in the constellation of Gemini. By 1804, astronomer William Herschel , who also discovered the planet Uranus, had noted that the fainter component of Castor had slightly changed its position relative to the brighter component. (We use the term “component” to mean a member of a star system.) Here was evidence that one star was moving around another. It was actually the first evidence that gravitational influences exist outside the solar system. The orbital motion of a binary star is shown in [link] . A binary star system in which both of the stars can be seen with a telescope is called a visual binary    .

Revolution of a binary star.