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Title: The spectral lines of two stars in a particular eclipsing binary system shift ba Post by: tcarr2014 on Mar 26, 2012 The spectral lines of two stars in a particular eclipsing binary system shift back and forth with a period of 9 months. The lines of both stars shift by equal amounts, and the amount of the Doppler shift indicates that each star has an orbital speed of 6.0×104 m/s.
What are the masses of the two stars? Assume that each of the two stars traces a circular orbit around their center of mass. I used a=(pv) / (2pi) and then Newton's version of Kepler's third law rearranged to find the combined mass... then converted it to solar masses and finally divided it in half to get the mass of each stars. I ended up with 3.3 * 10^3 but it's wrong... can anyone help? Title: Re: The spectral lines of two stars in a particular eclipsing binary system shift ba Post by: petey2008 on Mar 26, 2012 Content hidden
Title: Re: The spectral lines of two stars in a particular eclipsing binary system shift ba Post by: bastetdei on Mar 26, 2012 Here's what I have so far:
p = mv where p = momentum m = mass v = velocity = 6,0 x 10^4 9 months = 0.75 years Kepler's third law P^2 = a^3 -- 0.75 years ^2 = 0.82548182 AU^3 = separation of centers of mass of the two stars F = GMm/a^2 (a^2)F/6.77 x10^-11 = 1.021219243 x 10^10 F newtons/2 = 5.108097715 x 10^9 x F I have no idea if that's right, but the magnitude (x 10^9) seems more correct than 10^3. I hope it helps you some. Title: Re: The spectral lines of two stars in a particular eclipsing binary system shift ba Post by: Justin Foster on Nov 11, 2020 fanks
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