NAAP Eclipsing Binary Stars Lab — Pedagogical Objectives
- Importance of binary stars in determining stellar masses
- Importance of eclipsing binary stars in determining stellar masses and radii
- Brightness of an eclipsing binary system varies due to eclipses
(the stars passing in front of each other along our line of sight)
- Inclination and Eclipse relationship
Eclipses are impossible for inclination = 0° and increase in likelihood as inclination increases. Eclipses must occur when inclination = 0°.
- Given the masses and separation of the stars in a binary system, students should be able to estimate location of the center of mass
- Given the mass of one star and the location of the center of mass, students should be able to estimate the mass of the other star
- Given several stars of different colors/surface temperatures, students should be able to identify: the hottest star, the coolest star, the star most like the sun.
- Given either the color, spectral type, or surface temperature, students should be able to crudely estimate the other two quantities
- Students should understand that luminosity depends on both radius and surface temperature.
- Given the surface temperature and radius of a star in integer values of solar units, students should be able to calculate the luminosity
- how a light curve is constructed
- Students should understand the circumstances under which total eclipses (flat bottoms) and partial eclipses (pointed bottoms) occur
- Students should understand that eclipses will not be evenly spaced in time when eccentricity is not zero
- Given a description of a binary system, students should be able to select the corresponding light curve from a list of light curves