This classic space art example was commissioned for one of my recent books, Cosmic Menagerie: A Visual Journey Through the Universe. It imagines the view from the surface of a rocky world orbiting a blue giant star. These, such as Rigel in Orion, hav...

In this image I imagine a rocky world in orbit around a pair of stars, one yellow like the Sun and one a harsh blue. This image appeared in Universe: Journey into Deep Space, by Mike Goldsmith and myself....

Algol, also known as Beta Persei in the constellation Perseus, is the prototype of a class of interacting binary stars which differ from cataclysmic binaries. It was the first eclipsing binary ever found. Viewed from Earth, Algol varies its brightnes...

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...

This is the view from a planet in a close orbit around a magnetic flare star. These stars have such gigantic episodes of magnetic activity that they must have huge starspots, some of which have actually been imaged. Life on a nearby planet would be i...

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 ...

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...

Here you have an impression of a high-mass x-ray binary (HMXB), in which a blue giant (right) orbits a compact object such as a neutron star or black hole. The blue giant has a powerful stellar wind, shown radiating outwards here. Some of this materi...

A cataclysmic binary is a close-binary star system consisting of red dwarf (bottom) in orbit around a white dwarf. The proximity of the latter and its powerful gravity distorts the red dwarf. It gas flows away from it and plunges towards and around t...

This is the same kind of binary star system (a cataclysmic variable) as depicted Cataclysm III and VI this time seen from a cave on a purely hypothetical, watery and rocky planet. Admittedly, though, such a situation is highly unlikely to exist in re...