The First Photograph of a Planet Orbiting a Binary Neutron Star (1995)
This historic photograph, taken in 1995, captures the first image of a planet orbiting a binary neutron star. This remarkable discovery was made by the Hubble Space Telescope, which was able to detect the faint light of the planet as it passed between the two stars. The planet, which is about the
A binary star or binary star system is a system of two stars that are gravitationally bound to and in orbit around each other. Binary stars are among the most important objects in astrophysics because they allow direct measurement of stellar masses and test theories of stellar evolution. Binary stars in the night sky that are seen as a single object to the naked eye are often resolved as separate stars using a telescope, in which case they are called visual binaries. Many visual binaries have long orbital periods of several centuries or millennia and therefore have orbits which are uncertain or poorly known. They may also be detected by indirect techniques, such as spectroscopy or astrometry. If a binary star happens to orbit in a plane along our line of sight, its components will eclipse and transit each other; these pairs are called eclipsing binaries, or, together with other binaries that change brightness as they orbit, photometric binaries.