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| Description: Representative Light Curves of Eclipsing Binaries The shape of the light curve (blue) reveals that the pairs of stars have orbits in planes nearly perpendicular to our line of sight. They also provide details about the two stars that make up an eclipsing binary. Illustrated here are (a) a partial eclipse and (b) a total eclipse. (c) The binary star NN Serpens, indicated by the arrow, undergoes a total eclipse. The telescope was moved during the exposure so that the sky drifted slowly from left to right. During the 10.5-min eclipse, the dimmer but larger star in the binary system (an M6 V star) passed in front of the more luminous but smaller star (a white dwarf). The binary became so dim that it almost disappeared Picture Stats: Views: 690 Filesize: 249.59kB Height: 522 Width: 1350 Source: https://biology-forums.com/index.php?action=gallery;sa=view;id=18394 |