This video shows an interacting binary star system known as a cataclysmic variable (CV) or cataclysmic binary. The larger star is a red dwarf, a normal and very common star somewhat smaller, cooler and fainter than the Sun. It is in orbit around a mu...

Here is a different kind of x-ray binary. In the foreground (top) is a hot star called a Be star. It spins so quickly that it is surrounded by a circumstellar disc of matter, flung off via centrifugal force. The Be star is in orbit around a tiny and ...

This is an impression of the binary asteroid 90 Antiope, which orbits in the main part of the outer asteroid belt. Each asteroid is about 86 km across, orbiting its partner from a distance of 170 km and with a period of 16.5 hours. Binary asteroids a...

In this image I imagine an Earth-like world in orbit around not a single star but a close binary. What beautiful sunsets could be witnessed from this world. In the sky I have added a giant satellite, its night side illuminated by cities, betraying in...

This is an animation of a high-mass x-ray binary, in which a giant blue star is in orbit around a compact companion – sometimes a neutron star and sometimes a black hole. The giant star is distorted owing to its proximity to its highly compact part...

This image shows a low-mass x-ray binary star seen from a nearby, hypothetical asteroid field. The system consists of a red dwarf (bottom) which is losing its atmosphere to a black hole via an accretion disc....

W UMa (W Ursae Majoris) is the prototype of a class of interacting binary stars in which each member reaches out to touch the other. The stars are so close to one another that the gravity of each visibly distorts the other into a balloon shape. This ...

W UMa (W Ursae Majoris) is the prototype of a class of interacting binary stars in which each member reaches out to touch the other. The stars are so close to one another that the gravity of each visibly distorts the other into a balloon shape. This ...

Illustration of two black holes orbiting each other in a combined accretion disc. Eventually the black holes will merge, an event that will produce gravitational waves. Gravitational waves are a prediction of Einstein's theory of general relativit...

This was a commission for Scientific American, in their September 2000 edition. It was to illustrate an article about finding extrasolar planets via occultation – by detecting the dip in light levels as the planets transit in front of their stars. ...