Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T17:03:13.577Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Binary Stars: Historical Milestones

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2016

Hans Zinnecker
Hans Zinnecker*
Affiliation:
Astrophysikalisches Institut Potsdam, An der Sternwarte 16, D–14482 Potsdam, Germany

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

This is a brief historical review of the discovery of binary stars, starting in the 18th and 19th century with the work of W. Herschel, W. Struve, and their famous sons. I describe how Ch. Doppler in 1842 found the Doppler effect in connection with the colours of double stars. I also describe how the observation of the stationary Calcium H and K lines in the spectrum of the spectroscopic binary δ Ori led to the discovery of the interstellar medium by J. Hartmann in 1904 with the Potsdam refractor. Some steps in the discovery of young binary stars are recounted, starting with the paper of Joy and van Biesbroeck in 1944. The history of ideas regarding the origin of binary systems is also briefly reviewed, beginning with J. Michell's statistical argument in 1767 that many close visual pairs of stars must indeed form physical systems, and W. Herschel's definition of a binary star as “a real double star - the union of two stars that are formed together in one system, by the laws of attraction”.

Type
I. Introduction
Information
Symposium - International Astronomical Union , Volume 200: The Formation of Binary Stars , 2001 , pp. 1 - 12
Copyright
Copyright © Astronomical Society of the Pacific 2001 

References

Abt, H. A. 1978, in Protostars and Planets, ed. Gehrels, T., University of Arizona Press, 323.Google Scholar
Abt, H. A. 1983, ARAA, 21, 343.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Abt, H. A. & Levy, S. G. 1976, ApJS, 30, 273.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aitken, R. G. 1935, The Binary Stars, Dover Publ., New York.Google Scholar
Batten, A. H. 1973, Binary and Multiple Systems of Stars, Pergamon Press, New York.Google Scholar
Bodenheimer, P. & Ostriker, J. P. 1973, ApJ, 180, 159 (171).Google Scholar
Bonnell, I. 1994, MNRAS, 269, 837.Google Scholar
Bonnell, I. & Bastien, P. 1992, ApJ, 401, 654.Google Scholar
Boss, A. P. 1988, Comments in Ap., 12, 169.Google Scholar
Brandner, W., Alcala, J. M., Kunkel, M. et al. 1996, A&A, 307, 121.Google Scholar
Cohen, M. & Kuhi, L. V. 1979, ApJS, 41, 743.Google Scholar
Duquennoy, A. & Mayor, M. 1991, A&A, 248, 485.Google Scholar
Dyck, M., Simon, T., & Zuckerman, B. 1982, ApJL, 255, L103.Google Scholar
Ebert, R. 1960, in Die Entstehung von Sternen durch Kondensation diffuser Materie, ed. Burbidge, et al. (Berlin: Springer), 308.Google Scholar
Fabian, A. C., Pringle, J. E., & Rees, M. J. 1975, MNRAS, 172, 15.Google Scholar
Ghez, A. M., Matthews, K., & Neugebauer, G. 1993, AJ, 106, 2005.Google Scholar
Harrington, R. S. 1975, AJ, 60, 1081.Google Scholar
Hartmann, J. F. 1904, ApJ, 19, 268.Google Scholar
Heintz, W. D. 1969, J. Roy. Astron. Soc. Canada, 63(6), 275.Google Scholar
Herbig, G. H., 1962, Adv. A &A, 1, 47.Google Scholar
Herczeg, T. 1984, Ap. Sp. Sci., 99, 29 (IAU Coll. 80, ed. Kopal, Z. et al.)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoyle, F. 1953, ApJ, 118, 513.Google Scholar
Hunter, C. 1962, ApJ, 136, 594.Google Scholar
Jeans, J. H. 1918, MNRAS, 79, 100.Google Scholar
Joy, A. H. & van Biesbroeck, G. 1944, PASP, 56, 123.Google Scholar
Köhler, R. & Leinert, C. 1998, A&A, 331, 977.Google Scholar
Labeyrie, A. 1970, A&A, 6, L85.Google Scholar
Larson, R. B. 1978, MNRAS, 184, 69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leinert, Ch., Zinnecker, H., Weitzel, N. et al. 1993, A&A, 278, 129.Google Scholar
Marschall, L. A. & Mathieu, R. D. 1988, AJ, 98, 1956.Google Scholar
Mathieu, R. D., Walter, F. M., & Myers, P. C. 1989, AJ, 98, 987.Google Scholar
Mathieu, R. D. 1994, ARAA, 32, 465.Google Scholar
Mestel, L. 1965, Quart. J. Roy. Astr. Soc., 6, 161.Google Scholar
Michell, J. 1767, Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc., LXXVI, 97.Google Scholar
Mouschovias, T. C. 1977, ApJ, 211, 147.Google Scholar
Mundt, R., Walter, F. M., Feigelson, E. et al. 1983, ApJ, 269, 229.Google Scholar
Öpik, E. J. 1924, Tartu Observatory Pub., 25.Google Scholar
Pringle, J. E. 1989, MNRAS, 239, 361.Google Scholar
Pringle, J. E. 1991, in NATO ASI Ser. C, Vol. 342, The Physics of Star Formation and Early Stellar Evolution, ed. Lada, C. J. & Kylafis, N. D. (Dordrecht: Kluwer), 437.Google Scholar
Reipurth, B. 1988, in NATO ASI Ser. C, Vol. 241, Formation and Evolution of Low Mass Stars, ed. Dupree, A. K. & Lago, M. T. V. T. (Dordrecht: Kluwer), 305.Google Scholar
Reipurth, B. & Zinnecker, H. 1993, A&A, 278, 81.Google Scholar
Russell, H. N. 1910, ApJ, 31, 185.Google Scholar
Silk, J. 1978, in Protostars and Planets, ed. Gehrels, T., University of Arizona Press, 172.Google Scholar
Simon, M., Howell, R. R., Longmore, A. J. et al. 1987, ApJ, 320, 344.Google Scholar
Szebehely, V. 1977, Revista Mex. A&A, 3, 145 (special issue).Google Scholar
Tassoul, J.-L. 1978, Theory of Rotating Stars, Princeton Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Turner, J. A., Chapman, S. J., Bhattal, A. S. et al. 1995, MNRAS, 277, 705.Google Scholar
van Albada, T. S. 1968, Bull. Astr. Inst. Neth. 20, 57 (19, 479).Google Scholar
Vogel, H. C. 1889, Astr. Nachr., 123, 290.Google Scholar
Walter, F. M. et al. 1988, AJ, 96, 297.Google Scholar
Whitworth, A., Chapman, S. J., Bhattal, A. S. et al. 1995, MNRAS, 277, 727.Google Scholar
Zinnecker, H. 1984, Ap. Sp. Sci. 99, 41 (IAU Coll. 80, ed. Kopal, Z. et al.)Google Scholar
Zinnecker, H. 1989, in Low-Mass Star Formation and Pre-Main Sequence Objects, ed. Reipurth, B. (ESO: Garching), 447.Google Scholar
Zinnecker, H. 2000, Transactions of IAU Vol. XXIV A, ed. Andersen, J., 186.Google Scholar