Since very early times Sirius was a point of attraction in the night sky. It served to synchronize calendars in antiquity and was the subject of many mythsand legends, including some modern ones. It was perceived as a red star for more than 400 years, but such reports were relegated to the Mediterranean region. Astronomically, Sirius is a very bright star. This, and its present close distance to us, argues in favor of it being the target of detailed studies of stellar structure and evolution. Its binary nature, with a companion that is one of the more massive white dwarfs, is an additional reason for such studies. This book collects the published information on Sirius in an attempt to derivea coherent picture of how this system came to look as it does. Presents the historical and astrophysical context of Sirius at an advanced level The historical evidence for redness is not dismissed out-of-hand but is examined in detail, considering possible physical explanations Intriguing issues in the evolution of this binary system are pointed out: a very massive white dwarf, the elliptical orbit, a metallic-line primary INDICE: From the contents 1 Sirius Matters.- 2 Historical perspective.- 3 Mysteries of the Sirius System.- 4 Approaching modern times.- 5 Modern opticalmeasurements.- 6 Modern non-optical observations.- 7 The neighborhood of Sirius.- 8 The perspective of stellar structure.- 9 The perspective of stellar evolution.- 10 Sirius revealed - a synthesis of the information.
- ISBN: 978-1-4020-8318-1
- Editorial: Springer
- Encuadernacion: Cartoné
- Páginas: 255
- Fecha Publicación: 01/05/2008
- Nº Volúmenes: 1
- Idioma: Inglés