“To be is to be the value of a variable.” –Willard Van Orman Quine
Those constant, fixed points of light in the night sky — the stars — turn out not to be so constant if you looked with great precision at them. A star like our Sun varies in brightness, periodically, by about 0.1% over the span of a few years, but many stars vary by 99% or more from brightest to dimmest.
Image credit: British Astronomical Association Variable Star Section, via http://ift.tt/1I5BEKY.
For centuries, we knew of only a handful of these objects, yet now they’re known to be commonplace. What causes this spectacular behavior, how did we discover it and what’s the physical mechanism underlying it?
Image credit: NASA, ESA and A. Nota (STScI/ESA).
Come learn about the science of variable stars on this edition of Throwback Thursday!
from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1M0q9bT
“To be is to be the value of a variable.” –Willard Van Orman Quine
Those constant, fixed points of light in the night sky — the stars — turn out not to be so constant if you looked with great precision at them. A star like our Sun varies in brightness, periodically, by about 0.1% over the span of a few years, but many stars vary by 99% or more from brightest to dimmest.
Image credit: British Astronomical Association Variable Star Section, via http://ift.tt/1I5BEKY.
For centuries, we knew of only a handful of these objects, yet now they’re known to be commonplace. What causes this spectacular behavior, how did we discover it and what’s the physical mechanism underlying it?
Image credit: NASA, ESA and A. Nota (STScI/ESA).
Come learn about the science of variable stars on this edition of Throwback Thursday!
from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1M0q9bT
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