Double Stars and Star Families
Students learn how binary, triple and cluster star systems orbit a shared center of mass and how astronomers detect hidden partners, including a black hole.
Grades 5-8About 15 minutes of narrated flight, plus discussion stops6 stops
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What students will see and do
Students fly to Alpha Centauri, Sirius, Polaris, Canopus, the Pleiades and Cygnus X-1 while Aetherion introduces detective tricks for finding hidden stars: wobble, color shift and eclipses. The class can pause to discuss at the Alpha Centauri, Polaris and Cygnus X-1 stops.
Learning objectives
- Explain that two stars in a binary orbit a shared center of mass.
- Describe three methods for detecting binary stars: wobble, Doppler color shift and eclipses.
- Explain how differences in mass lead partner stars to age at different rates.
- Describe how a partner star can reveal the presence and mass of a black hole.
NGSS connections
| MS-ESS1-2 | Students model how gravity holds binary, multiple and cluster star systems together and controls their orbits. |
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Stops on this journey
- A Triple Star Next Door (discussion stop)
- The Case of the Wobbling Star
- The North Star Is Three Stars (discussion stop)
- A Lonely Giant and a Spacecraft Guide
- A Whole Family
- Partner to a Black Hole (discussion stop)
Vocabulary
- binary star
- center of mass
- white dwarf
- Doppler shift
- eclipsing binary
- star cluster
- black hole
- accretion disk