Binary Star System

A binary star is a star system consisting of two stars orbiting around their common center of mass. The more massive star is called the primary and the other is its companion star, or secondary. These systems, especially when more distant, often appear to the unaided eye as a single point of light, and are revealed as double (or more) systems when analyzed by other means.

Systems of two, three, four, or even more stars are called multiple star systems. Roughly one third of the stars in a galaxy are binary or multiple star systems.

Some binary star systems have long orbital periods of several centuries or millennia and therefore have orbits which are uncertain or poorly known.

If components in binary star systems are close enough they can gravitationally distort their mutual outer stellar atmospheres. In some cases, these close binary systems can exchange mass, which may bring their evolution to stages that single stars cannot attain.

Binary Star Systems in the Frontier

The Standard Map of The Frontier and The Rim includes fourteen binary systems (three of these in Rim space), not including the Formad Cluster.

All binary systems are classified as "uninhabitable" due to a lack of suitable planetary bodies therein; this is not to say that they are actually uninhabited: most have asteroid and (Kuyper belts and cometary shells, as well as minor rocky or gaseous planets that may house mining ventures, research facilities or even secret military, corporate or "pirate" bases.

The Frontier

• Binary Star H-D - 4 LY from Dixon's Star, 5 LY Truane's Star and 3 LY from Belnafaer, the eccentric nature of this system makes it a challenge to navigate and, combined by the "Veil's Train" of the Lesser Morass, make a direct route from Dixon's Star to Scree Fron a practical impossibility.
• Binary Star M-C - 4 LY from Scree Fron and 4 LY from Athor, this system's vast rocky belts have been home to many mining ventures for decades, which in turn has produced local pirate gangs.
• Binary Star P-A - 4 LY from Scree Fron and 5 LY from Athor, P-A Alpha, the long-period system's primary, has the distinction of serving as northern pole star on the Mechanon world of Mechano.
• Binary Star M-2 - 2 LY from Athor and 6 LY from Araks
• Binary Star R-13 - 7 LY from Araks and 9 LY from Gruna Garu beyond the Yreva Nebula towards the Vast Expanse, this system is immortalized by the nursery rhyme "The Winking Star of Beta Prime".
• Binary Star 3-D - 5 LY from Prenglar, 4 LY from Cassidine, 4 LY from Madderly's Star and 4 LY from Delta, BS-3-D has the distinction of lying practically at the center of the "Delta Triangle"; a tetrahedal region of space with the aforementioned worlds marking its points in which, according to superstition, hundreds of ships have vanished without a trace.
• Binary Star 5-F - 2 LY from Madderly's Star, 3 LY from Dramune and 5 LY from Cassidine
• Binary Star 8-J - 1 LY from Devco, 5 LY from Dramune, this system has a Cassidine Development Corporation research station in a polar orbit of the system.
• Binary Star 12-M - 2 LY from Kizk'-Kar and 6 LY from K'aken-Kar, this triple-star system has two similar-mass main-sequence stars orbiting each other with a common barycenter and, as a unit, orbiting the system's primary, which is a large neutron star with mass roughly equal to that of the two secondaries. The complex, interwoven orbit around a mutual barycenter, presenting what has been described as "the most beautiful dance in the cosmos" by astrophysicists sturying it.
• Binary Star 25-5 - Hidden on the far side of the White Light Nebula, this system has the distinction of having the two youngest stars in either the Frontier or the Rim; only 9 million years or so.
• Binary Star 16-14 - Also known as Padda F-11, this system (4 LY from Theseus and 7 LY from Waller Nexus) is best known as the first stop of the famed exploration ship UPFS Eleanor Moraes. The system has unremarkable stars in a standard-period orbit. No planetary bodies are present.

The Rim

• Binary Star K-Q - 4 LY from Kazak and 6 LY from Osak
• Binary Star 7-V - 4 LY from Klaeok and 5 LY from Cryxia
• Binary Star 17-T - 7 LY from Klaeok and 4 LY from Donal's Reach

• Formad Cluster

Notes & References

• Binary Star Article on Wikipedia