#contact binary

[whirligig-girl]

Troublesome Engines: A Lower Decks fic

The first few chapters of Troublesome Engines is now up on AO3.

It's 2383, and Beckett Mariner and Eaurp Guz are tasked with repairing the infrastructure of a crucial Federation-Ferengi Dilithium Mine on a binary planet. To Eaurp's elation and Beckett's bafflement, the damaged infrastructure are automated steam locomotives! Can they and the rest of the crew get to the bottom of the sudden failure… or is there something deeper going on?

Archive of our Own Link

Chapter 1: Contact Binary

Chapter 2: Runaway

Chapter 3: We Need To Talk

Chapter 4: 28,627 People

Chapter 5: Osculating Orbital Elements

[b-e-l-l-a--l-u-n-a]

✨️✨️✨️✨️

The image is an artist rendering of VFTS-352 – the hottest and most massive double star system to date where the two stars are in contact.

Near my birthday he taught me there are some binary stars who remain in a "kiss" for millions of years. This happens when they are similar in mass and join to share what they contain instead of stealing energy from one another. What I wouldn't give to see two stars kiss like this up close. I'm glad to kiss him though. That's just as lovely 😉 💕

✨️✨️✨️✨️

He also painted for me an image of 2 lovers ..one the dawn and one the night being touched by her love.

💛☀️🫂👩‍❤️‍💋‍👨🫂☀️💛

[zespaceblog]

Contact Binary Stars

Binary Systems contain 2 or more stars that circle each other, and whilst our own star is a singleton, it is estimated that upto 85% of star systems contain more than 1 star. 

But, not normally so close together that they are touching ! 

A Contact Binary set of stars have moved so close together that their atmospheres are now interacting. The important thing to note here is that the actual action in a star, in terms of the fusion, is in the core, so both core’s are independent of each other and fusing the atoms inside, while the outer shell tends to be mostly hydrogen. Gravity from the stars will begin to pull and push matter from one another, with the dominant partner being the one with the greatest mass (not always the largest in size or brightness) slowly winning over time and accumulating matter for itself. 

This process can take millions of year, even billions (depending on size and distance, and difference in mass), but the upshot is, one of the stars will be gaining in mass. As the mass increases, so does the pressure inside and so the core will begin to increase and fuse more, bringing the star to an artificially early end. Another mass, and a supernova will occur. 

The closest pair so far spotted is KIC 9832227, located in Cygnus and 1843 light years from us and is predicted to merge in 2022.

[therealuniverse]

Dumbell Asteroid This image is a compilation of radar images of asteroid 1999 JD6, a near-earth asteroid discovered in 1999. This asteroid is an Aten asteroid, a class of asteroids that have a perihelion inside the orbit of Earth and an aphelion outside the Earth’s orbit; thus it must cross the orbit of Earth twice every time it goes around the sun. These asteroids are therefore considered potentially hazardous asteroids.

In 2015, this asteroid made a close pass to Earth, coming 19 lunar distances from Earth at its closest point (that’s considered close in terms of space). In fact, in 1996 the asteroid made a closer pass to Earth than that, but that was before the asteroid was ever discovered so it wasn’t seen. It will not make any passes that close to Earth for the next several centuries. This asteroid is considered a contact binary. It clearly has 2 large lobes, which likely orbited each other for a long time and gradually moved towards each other until they finally made contact, gently merging together into a single, broken up object. They still have the same angular momentum, keeping them spinning as you see in this set of images. The long axis of this asteroid is about 2 kilometers long. These images were taken by one of the world’s radar stations. Radar images are taken using large radar dishes capable of transmitting and receiving; energy is sent out from the dish and the travel time is monitored to determine the shape of the object. Not every radar dish in the world can transmit, so sometimes these images are taken combining one dish for transmission and another for receiving. This one was collected using the Goldstone station in the California desert. -JBB Image source: https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA19647 Reference: https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=1999+JD6%3Bold%3D0%3Borb%3D0%3Bcov%3D0%3Blog%3D0%3Bcad%3D1

[visualgirladvance]

new profile picture! it's in the contact binary style, although it won't be in CoBi itself- given rosetta, the satellite depicted, was deorbited in 2016. been getting better at making photoshop dither the way i need it to

[whirligig-girl]

Shuttlecraft Train Chase

TROUBLESOME ENGINES a Star Trek: Lower Decks fic

The USS Cerritos comes to the aid of a Federation-Ferengi dilithium mine on a contact binary planet, which reported the loss of their transportation infrastructure. Their trains--powered by automated steam locomotives--have stopped running altogether. Can Beckett Mariner, Eaurp Guz, T'lyn, Brad Boimler, Sam Rutherford, and Tendi figure out the source of the mechanical error? Or is there something deeper going on here?

NT&TGR No.16 is a Little Nagus type outside-frame 2-8-2 locomotive outfitted with sensors and a computer to allow it to be operated entirely automatically. There are very basic crew accomodations in the form of a deckless cab, but that aside the engines can be run entirely uncrewed. They are cheaply produced in order to maximize profit, but are built to modern standards, with duranium frames and boiler, and compound cylinders utilizing a camshaft and poppet valve based valve gear. The cylinders appear to be undersized, but this is due to the extremely high boiler pressure in use, and even then, the cutoff must be kept exceptionally low to prevent wheelslipping, especially when utilized in lower gravity environments.

[b-e-l-l-a--l-u-n-a]

Where I find us... is in a silent place. A quiet place, just us. I see you and you see me, tenderly touching eachother with gentle fire. Like binary stars, burning to eachother, quietly, whispering. Touching our light. Fed by our love.

edb

[nelc]

This movie of asteroid 2014 JO25 was generated using radar data collected by NASA's 230-foot-wide (70-meter) Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, California on April 19, 2017. When the observations began 2014 JO25 was 1.53 million miles (2.47 million kilometers) from Earth. By the time the observations concluded, the asteroid was 1.61 million miles (2.59 million kilometers) away. The asteroid has a contact binary structure -- two lobes connected by a neck-like region. The largest of the asteroid's two lobes is estimated to be 2,000 feet (610 meters) across. Asteroid 2014 JO25 approached to within 1.1 million miles (1.8 million kilometers) of Earth on April 19. There are no future flybys by 2014 JO25 as close as this one for more than 400 years. The resolution of the radar images is about 25 feet (7.5 meters) per pixel. 154 images were used to create the movie shown. More information regarding asteroid 2014 JO25 can be found at https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news196.html and http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch.