Why do the stars (astronomy) appear to be in PAIRS.?

Question

Two years ago I looked up at the night sky and noticed that each star appears to have a double, it could just be a optical illusion, but then again it could be for other reasons, do you have a theory?

Answer 1

many many stars are actually doubles/pairs.
But not all of them. Have you had your eyes checked?

I had a pair of binoculars that were slighly misaligned that gave me this effect as well. ??

Answer 2

There's many many many stars in the sky. While two stars may appear right next to eachother from our vantage point, this may not actually be the case, as they are arranged three dimentionally and one star may be many many lightyears from the other.

There are, however, stars that are binary systems. That is, solar systems with two stars that orbit eachother close enough for us to notice. The second star in the handle of the big dipper (Ursa Major) is in one such system. If you look very closely, you will see a very faint star right next to it. This ISN'T the other star.

To see the companion star you actually need a decent sized telescope. A star called Epsilon Bootes in the constellation Bootes is another binary system. The very bright star Sirius which appears to the East of Orion is also part of a binary system, only in the case of Sirius, it's companion star Sirius B, is a white dwarf. Sirius is interesting as it has supposedly undergone a change in color from orange to white/blue in the past 2000 years or so. Astronomers speculate that it may have literally sucked the outer layers of gas from it's companion and used it for fuel.

Answer 3

Stars are formed in clusters, so star systems with two or more stars are common. Roughly half of all stars are in multiple star systems.

However, it seems odd to me that you visually saw all the stars to be doubles. A lot of the binaries have one star that is much brighter than the other, or the two stars are so close such that you only see one star, especially if you aren't using binoculars or a telescope.

Don't forget that just because two stars appear close together in the sky that doesn't mean they are really close in 3-dimentions - one could be twice as far away as the other, and there's no way to tell the distance to a star just by looking with your eyes.

Answer 4

Stars definetly donot appear in pairs with naked eye. But if u r using a good resolution telescope with no abberations in it (practically almost impossible), then you can see some stars as pairs, that too, mostly due to the parallax effect, this doesnt mean binaries doesnt exists, even with Binoculars we can observe many no. of paired stars.
But as u said, every star cannot be paired, and there is no point of having a theory for this. But if you are sure that you are confident of what you have seen then it might be some problem with your eyes or with the instruments that u saw.

Answer 5

I don't think it is just becoz of optical illusion as there are thousands of stars in the sky ,if you want to concentrate on one star the cornea of the eye swell after some time and therefore making it difficult to concentrate.That's the main reason why stars appear to be in pairs.

Answer 6

I like to relax by answering astronomy questions, and it's nice to know that there are still people taking an interest in the night sky. You can gaze into it and ponder your own existence. What can be more amazing than that?

Okay, thanks for reading my intro. Binary stars are very common. In fact, our Sun, all by it's lonesome, is the exception, not the rule. The reason why binary, or even triple and quadruple star systems easily form in galaxies is derived from computer modeling of molecular clouds. Molecular clouds, like the Great Nebula in Orion, are star "nurseries." Those clouds are left over stuff from stars that have gone supernova (exploded). The clouds, thousands of light years across, condense in places, and those condensed places get heavier and heavier with more and more molecules weighing down on each other, that the pressure at the center of all this mass goes up. Since pressure = temperature, the temperature at the center (core) of this condensing mass also goes up. When this core of mostly hydrogen gas gets to a temperature of 10 million degrees, nuclear fusion of hydrogen nuclei begins, and a star is born. Actually, quite a number of stars are born in close clusters in such clouds. So, back to the computer modeling, if you input the physics of such a situation into a computer, the computer verifies what you can already see with a telescope. That many stars that are born near each other tend to gravitationally interact, forming multiple star systems.

That said, if your telescope split every point of light you looked at into two points, it's an aberration in the lens. Toss it and get a new one?

Our sun is kind of an oddball in that regard, being all by its lonesome. The closest star system to our sun is Alpha Centauri. It's a quadruple star system. All those suns doing an orbital dance with each other. Wonder what it would be like to live on a planet with 4 suns?

Hope you had as much fun reading this as I did writing it.

Answer 7

You (or your telescope) probably have an astigmatism. While most stars are actually in paired (binary) systems. There are only a few that you can see as "visual doubles"
Most are spectroscopic (you can only tell they have a pair when you seperate the colors with a spectrograph).
I also have an astigmatism and often see double when I'm not wearing my glasses

Answer 8

The Stars appear to be in pairs it is an illusion and just there are
all together

Answer 9

Though they appear close they are in fact, millions of miles apart. The farther the distance the stars are the closer they seem to appear to each other as the angle subtended by our eyes gets narrow when we see objects that are far off

Answer 10

I know that this is a follow through from your first question… so pleases read my answer to your first question as I have updated it a bit……
Secondly if your theory of orbital ER was correct you would not be able to see the mirror image as it would only be visible 180 degrees on the other side of the planet

Answer 11

Always use logic n common sense before asking. There r so many stars that's y it is called milky way. There r many stars behind any one star some a bit close n some very far away. it such that what ever we can think is true n what ever we can not think is also true so think positive and logical.
thank you.