Start Date
2020
Description
A contact binary star system consists of two stars orbiting each other so closely that they share a common atmosphere (Figure 1). Nearly 1% of stars like our sun are contact binaries, yet there is not a comprehensive model of their lives. Our goal is to understand the formation, life, and explosive demise of these objects. This summer we used MESA, a stellar modeling program, paired with a Python program to model the lives of contact binary stars.
Recommended Citation
Henderson, Lauren; Avery, Anneke; Le, Gia Mien; and Molnar, Larry A., "Using MESA to Test Our Theory of Contact Binary Star Evolution" (2020). Summer Research. 15.
https://digitalcommons.calvin.edu/summer_research/2020/Posters/15
Using MESA to Test Our Theory of Contact Binary Star Evolution
A contact binary star system consists of two stars orbiting each other so closely that they share a common atmosphere (Figure 1). Nearly 1% of stars like our sun are contact binaries, yet there is not a comprehensive model of their lives. Our goal is to understand the formation, life, and explosive demise of these objects. This summer we used MESA, a stellar modeling program, paired with a Python program to model the lives of contact binary stars.