New observations solve longstanding mystery of tipped stars
Thursday, September 17, 2009 - 12:14
in Astronomy & Space
Results: MIT researchers and colleagues have solved a longstanding mystery about a pair of stars called DI Herculis whose peculiar rotation (a shift in their orbit that was four times slower than expected) had remained a mystery for three decades. The real enation is simple: The stars are rotating tipped over on their sides, relative to their orbits around each other.