Stars: The Building Blocks of the Universe

Stars are the essential elements of our cosmos, with each star often hosting its own planets, much like our sun anchors the solar system. When we zoom out, we see that these stars group together to form massive structures like clusters and galaxies. However, before astrophysicists can unravel the mysteries of these colossal entities, understanding the fundamental properties of stars—such as their mass, radius, and temperature—becomes imperative.

The Challenge of Measuring Stellar Properties

The problem? Accurately measuring these properties is no easy feat, given the astronomical distances involved. To put it into perspective, if our sun were the size of a basketball on the East Coast of the U.S., the closest star, Proxima Centauri, would be like an orange located in Hawaii—an unimaginable distance. Despite the power of the world’s largest telescopes, resolving an orange from such a distance proves impossible.

Unlocking the Secrets of Binary Stars

Enter binary stars: systems consisting of two stars that revolve around a shared center of mass. Their interaction follows Kepler's harmonic law, linking the sizes of their orbits, their orbital period, and their combined mass. My research team has been at the forefront of enhancing our understanding of these stellar pairs, leveraging innovative artificial intelligence (AI) methodologies to interpret observations.

Calculating Mass and Radius of Stars Easily