Key Terms
- binary stars
- two stars that revolve about each other
- brown dwarf
- an object intermediate in size between a planet and a star; the approximate mass range is from about 1/100 of the mass of the Sun up to the lower mass limit for self-sustaining nuclear reactions, which is about 1/12 the mass of the Sun
- eclipsing binary
- a binary star in which the plane of revolution of the two stars is nearly edge-on to our line of sight, so that the light of one star is periodically diminished by the other passing in front of it
- H–R diagram
- (Hertzsprung–Russell diagram) a plot of luminosity against surface temperature (or spectral type) for a group of stars
- main sequence
- a sequence of stars on the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram, containing the majority of stars, that runs diagonally from the upper left to the lower right
- mass-luminosity relation
- the observed relation between the masses and luminosities of many (90% of all) stars
- selection effect
- the selection of sample data in a nonrandom way, causing the sample data to be unrepresentative of the entire data set
- spectroscopic binary
- a binary star in which the components are not resolved but whose binary nature is indicated by periodic variations in radial velocity, indicating orbital motion
- visual binary
- a binary star in which the two components are telescopically resolved
- white dwarf
- a low-mass star that has exhausted most or all of its nuclear fuel and has collapsed to a very small size; such a star is near its final state of life
This book was adapted from the following: Fraknoi, A., Morrison, D., & Wolff, S. C. (2016). Key Terms In Astronomy. OpenStax. https://openstax.org/books/astronomy/pages/18-key-terms under a Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0
Access the entire book for free at https://openstax.org/books/astronomy/pages/1-introduction
