My Science School

What are X-ray binaries?

An X-ray binary system is a contact binary system containing a collapsed star (a white dwarf, neutron star or possibly, a Black Hole) and a normal star. As the normal star expands (in the giant phase of evolution) material flows from it towards the collapsed star, giving rise to a kind of gravitational whirlpool in the form of an extremely thin hot disc orbiting round the collapsed star. This disc is a source of X-rays.

What are eclipsing binaries?

In eclipsing binaries each of the stars periodically passes in front of the other eclipsing it, resulting in the combined brightness of the two stars diminishing periodically.

What is a worm hole?

The theories of Black Holes and wormholes are derived from Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity. Einstein’s Theory of Gravity states that gravity exists because massive objects curve the space around them and things fall simply because they are following the shortest path through curved space. Wormholes and black holes have long been recognized as possible solutions to Einstein’s equations. Both are severe space warps, or intense gravitational fields. But there are two important differences between them. A black hole has a ‘bottom’- a ‘singularity’ at which its gravitational field becomes infinitely strong.

A wormhole in contrast does not have a bottom, but has two ‘mouths’ connected by a ‘throat’. The mouths may be very far apart in space even though the throat is short. Thus a worm hole might in principle serve as a kind of cosmic shortcut, like the one a worm takes when it burrows through an apple rather than crawling the long way around the surface. An object sucked into one mouth of a wormhole and down the throat might emerge from the second mouth only a few moments later, but possibly halfway across the universe. However there is no completely satisfactory theory that explains how worm holes are formed and maintained in nature. No wormholes have so far been detected.