The Night Before Herod Was To Bring Him To Trial, Peter Was Sleeping Between Two Soldiers, Bound With

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The Stellar Buddy System

Our Sun has an entourage of planets, moons, and smaller objects to keep it company as it traverses the galaxy. But it’s still lonely compared to many of the other stars out there, which often come in pairs. These cosmic couples, called binary stars, are very important in astronomy because they can easily reveal things that are much harder to learn from stars that are on their own. And some of them could even host habitable planets!

The birth of a stellar duo

New stars emerge from swirling clouds of gas and dust that are peppered throughout the galaxy. Scientists still aren’t sure about all the details, but turbulence deep within these clouds may give rise to knots that are denser than their surroundings. The knots have stronger gravity, so they can pull in more material and the cloud may begin to collapse.

The material at the center heats up. Known as a protostar, it is this hot core that will one day become a star. Sometimes these spinning clouds of collapsing gas and dust may break up into two, three, or even more blobs that eventually become stars. That would explain why the majority of the stars in the Milky Way are born with at least one sibling.

Seeing stars

We can’t always tell if we’re looking at binary stars using just our eyes. They’re often so close together in the sky that we see them as a single star. For example, Sirius, the brightest star we can see at night, is actually a binary system (see if you can spot both stars in the photo above). But no one knew that until the 1800s.

Precise observations showed that Sirius was swaying back and forth like it was at a middle school dance. In 1862, astronomer Alvan Graham Clark used a telescope to see that Sirius is actually two stars that orbit each other.

But even through our most powerful telescopes, some binary systems still masquerade as a single star. Fortunately there are a couple of tricks we can use to spot these pairs too.

Since binary stars orbit each other, there’s a chance that we’ll see some stars moving toward and away from us as they go around each other. We just need to have an edge-on view of their orbits. Astronomers can detect this movement because it changes the color of the star’s light – a phenomenon known as the Doppler effect.

Stars we can find this way are called spectroscopic binaries because we have to look at their spectra, which are basically charts or graphs that show the intensity of light being emitted over a range of energies. We can spot these star pairs because light travels in waves. When a star moves toward us, the waves of its light arrive closer together, which makes its light bluer. When a star moves away, the waves are lengthened, reddening its light.

Sometimes we can see binary stars when one of the stars moves in front of the other. Astronomers find these systems, called eclipsing binaries, by measuring the amount of light coming from stars over time. We receive less light than usual when the stars pass in front of each other, because the one in front will block some of the farther star’s light.

Sibling rivalry

Twin stars don’t always get along with each other – their relationship may be explosive! Type Ia supernovae happen in some binary systems in which a white dwarf – the small, hot core left over when a Sun-like star runs out of fuel and ejects its outer layers – is stealing material away from its companion star. This results in a runaway reaction that ultimately detonates the thieving star. The same type of explosion may also happen when two white dwarfs spiral toward each other and collide. Yikes!

Scientists know how to determine how bright these explosions should truly be at their peak, making Type Ia supernovae so-called standard candles. That means astronomers can determine how far away they are by seeing how bright they look from Earth. The farther they are, the dimmer they appear. Astronomers can also look at the wavelengths of light coming from the supernovae to find out how fast the dying stars are moving away from us.

Studying these supernovae led to the discovery that the expansion of the universe is speeding up. Our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will scan the skies for these exploding stars when it launches in the mid-2020s to help us figure out what’s causing the expansion to accelerate – a mystery known as dark energy.

Spilling stellar secrets

Astronomers like finding binary systems because it’s a lot easier to learn more about stars that are in pairs than ones that are on their own. That’s because the stars affect each other in ways we can measure. For example, by paying attention to how the stars orbit each other, we can determine how massive they are. Since heavier stars burn hotter and use up their fuel more quickly than lighter ones, knowing a star’s mass reveals other interesting things too.

By studying how the light changes in eclipsing binaries when the stars cross in front of each other, we can learn even more! We can figure out their sizes, masses, how fast they’re each spinning, how hot they are, and even how far away they are. All of that helps us understand more about the universe.

Tatooine worlds

Thanks to observatories such as our Kepler Space Telescope, we know that worlds like Luke Skywalker’s home planet Tatooine in “Star Wars” exist in real life. And if a planet orbits at the right distance from the two stars, it could even be habitable (and stay that way for a long time).

In 2019, our Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) found a planet, known as TOI-1338 b, orbiting a pair of stars. These worlds are tricker to find than planets with only one host star, but TESS is expected to find several more!

Want to learn more about the relationships between stellar couples? Check out this Tumblr post: https://nasa.tumblr.com/post/190824389279/cosmic-couples-and-devastating-breakups

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

So true!

It’s just hair, but other people like to claim your hair like its theirs, tell you what you can and can’t do, criticize you for changing it, and add a lot value to it like it’s not just hair.

But tell me why we are the only ones that have to go through this..its upsetting.

Found on Instagram

Emma of Normandy - Twice a Queen

There is a tantalizingly small amount known of Emma’s early life. She was the daughter of Richard I “The Fearless” Duke of Normandy and his second wife Gunorra and was born between 985 and 990 A.D. Emma was married to the Anglo-Saxon King Aethelred “The Unready” of England in 1002 when she was probably in her early teens. This marriage was a decisive and desperate political move made by Aethelred. The reign of King Aethelred was plagued by war with the invading Vikings and, though he was forceful, Aethelred was branded “Æþelræd Unræd” or “Aethelred of Bad counsel.” The name quickly evolved to “Aethelred the Unready.” He married Emma because she was Norman, and therefore of Viking descent, as her great-grandfather was the Viking Rollo, founder of Normandy. 

Emma was around twenty years younger than her husband Aethelred, who already had ten children by his first wife, including several sons. Nevertheless, Emma produced three children: Edward (later Edward the Confessor), Alfred Aetheling, and Goda of England. The early years of Emma’s life in England can not have been peaceful for her. She was a Danish outsider who could not speak the old English language of her subjects, as far as some people were concerned. She was often caught between the English and Danish factions and was held somehow responsible for attacks carried out by Swein Forkbeard, the ruler of Viking occupied England. Out of this, Emma likely developed a sharp political mind. Soon the volatile political climate turned towards war. In 1109, Aethelred and Emma were preparing for a major battle with the Vikings and all able men in the country were called upon. But in 1011 Swein Forkbeard was victorious and moving dangerously far into southern England. 

Acting as a dutiful queen, Emma followed her husband’s lead and continued to hold court, but she convinced him to move the court to Kent. It was not long before Emma realized the end was near for Aethelred’s reign, even if he did not. She escaped to Normandy, humiliated by her husband, and had her children follow. Meanwhile, Swein and his sons Harold and Cnut established the first Viking dynasty in England. A year later Swein was dead and by 1016 Aethelred was as well, leaving Emma a widow. Emma knew her son Edward was unlikely to succeed his father, as her stepson Edmund Ironside was the obvious heir. She saw Edmund as a chance to save the fortunes of her children and herself and sought to stay in his favor in order to keep her own estates. But Edmund was soon dead. Swein was succeeded by his son Cnut, who would one day be known as “Cnut the Great.” When Cnut made it clear that he would have Emma as his queen it seemed her only safe option was to marry him. But Emma also had her own motives for doing so. She wanted to protect her own wealth, estates, and the Anglo-Saxon people she ruled over. Most importantly, marrying Cnut would save her three children by (ostensibly) neutralizing their claims to the throne. Emma married Cnut and became Queen of England for a second time under a completely new dynasty. She bore Cnut two children, a son called Harthacnut and a daughter called Gunhilda.  

As Cnut’s Queen, Emma took an active role in Church politics and was a patroness of many religious works. It is suggested in the Encomium Emmae Reginae  (written in praise of the Viking kings of England as well as of Emma) that Emma and Cnut did marry for political reasons, but that their union developed into one of real affection. Cnut died in 1035 and was succeeded by his and Emma’s son Harthacnut. In 1036, Emma’s sons Edward and Alfred returned from Normandy and soon afterwards Alfred was captured, blinded, and died as a result. Edward fled after this incident, perhaps to protect his own claim to the throne.

Emma was one of the main influences during the reign of Harthacnut. She also helped to engineer the joint reign between her sons Edward and Harthacnut and maintain peace between the Anglo Saxon and Viking factions.She may even have acted as a co-ruler. When Harthacnut died in 1042, Edward was left as the sole ruler of England. Emma died in 1052 and was buried in Winchester next to her second, and perhaps best loved, husband Cnut the Great and her son Harthacnut. Her influence is still felt in history through the prominence of her eldest son, Edward the Confessor, who may never have been king had Queen Emma not fought for herself and her children. She is the most visible of the early medieval queens and one of the first Queens of England to have a marked role in government.   

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