088 – Dr Ross Church – Binary Star Formation
Dr Ross Church is a PhD from Cambridge, and is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at Monash University. I talked to him about binary stars:
– What are binary stars?
– How common are they?
– Can stars exist in triple or more systems?
– How big are most binary stars?
– How do binary stars form?
– How can we detect binary stars through observation?
– Can binary systems have planets?
Also featured are listener of the episode, and listener feedback.
This episode of Brains Matter is brought to you by Swinburne Astronomy Online
Please vote for this podcast this month at
You can donate by clicking on the button above, and subscribe by subscribing in iTunes 
March 23rd, 2009 at 10:16
[…] Listen in and hear the suggestions and find out more. […]
August 6th, 2009 at 03:31
I’m glad that after surfing the web for uch a long time I have found out this information. I’m really lucky.
November 28th, 2009 at 21:08
I remember back when proto-planets were first confirmed, questions were asked whether they cound form around binaries, and if so, what kind of orbits they might have. People were very disappointed to learn that figure-eight orbits were pretty-much impossible. ha ha