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The Daytime Astronomer on Morphological Humor
By Alex Antunes | March 3rd 2009 10:20 AM | 5 comments | Print | E-mail | Track Comments
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About Alex Antunes

In "The Sky By Day", Dr. Alex Antunes serves twice-weekly slices of life from the sometimes strange, sometimes oddly normal workday of a NASA astrophysicist. Readers get the inside scoop on what... Full Bio

An Algol type star system is an eclipsing spectroscopic binary consisting of two close, interacting stars. Their X-ray emission is due to slow mass transfer due to Roche lobe overflow. Algol-type systems named after the first discovery of this type, the Algol system, researched by various astronomers from 1667 until Pickering and Vogel nailed what it was in 1889

However, later observations could have disqualified Algol from being an Algol-type system, since it's actually a triple star system (a trenary). However, saying that Algol is not an Algol-type system is just too silly. What's next, claiming Pluto isn't a planet?

Comments

According to my current understanding, one of the requirements for "planet" is that the body clear the orbital path.

Which means that Earth is not a planet. Having Sedna in the way.

2 down, seven to go.....

Mark C. Wallace (not verified) | 03/03/09 | 17:26 PM
Perhaps I'm just missing some bit of humor or something... but what does Sedna have to do with Earth? I thought Sedna was trans-neptunian.

Steve Bergman (not verified) | 03/04/09 | 11:41 AM
Very sorry - I was thinking of Cruithne, not Sedna.
And I realize that even at the beginning I was only tangential to the topic, but I can't help myself, so I'll add
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/03/05/illinois-pluto...

M. Wallace (not verified) | 03/06/09 | 09:07 AM
Hank's picture
What's next, claiming Pluto isn't a planet?

 Don't open up that can of worms.    This lady has some sort of sixth sense about Pluto ridicule and will react accordingly.

Hank Campbell | 03/03/09 | 18:24 PM
Well, I'd say that now that we've disposed of that silly reflexivity relation, we have a pretty good basis for going after symmetry and transitivity. Addison-Wesley and their shareholders will love this. Although some of their authors have expressed concern regarding how to finish the books after completing the necessary modifications to chapter 1.

Steve Bergman (not verified) | 03/04/09 | 07:19 AM

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