OK, this looks nice - but let's think it through. You've got two binary stars with angular diameters and spectral properties roughly analogous to our Sun - shining through an atmosphere containing semi-precipitous water vapor (also known as clouds). Plausible? Credit: NASA.
So we all know the story. Uncle Owen has just emotionally blackmailed you into putting off your application to the academy for another year – and even after you just got those two new droids, darn it. So you stare mournfully at the setting binary suns and?
Hang on, they look a lot like G type stars – and if so, their roughly 0.5 degree angular diameters in the sky suggest they are both only around 1 astronomical unit away. I mean OK, you could plausibly have a close red dwarf and a distant blue giant having identical apparent diameters, but surely they would look substantially different, both in color and brightness. (...)
Read the rest of Astronomy Without A Telescope – Plausibility Check (701 words)
© Steve Nerlich for Universe Today, 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
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Full story at http://www.universetoday.com/83238/astronomy-without-a-telescope-plausibility-check/
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