3 days ago
Citizen scientists pinpoint 10,000 eclipsing star pairs
Citizen scientists have successfully located thousands of previously unknown pairs of 'eclipsing binary' stars, NASA announced in June.
The ongoing initiative helps space researchers hunt for 'eclipsing binary' stars, a rare phenomenon in which two stars orbit one another, periodically blocking each other's light.
These star pairs offer important data to astrophysicists, who consider the many measurable properties of eclipsing binaries — and the information they bear about the history of star formation and destruction — as a foundation of the field.
