UW astronomers document a century of changing stellar eclipses

Submitted by Arts & Sciences Web Team on

A team led by Dr. James Davenport, research assistant professor of astronomy at the UW and associate director of the UW’s DIRAC Institute, analyzed more than 125 years of observations of the star system HS Hydra – from astro-photographic plates in the late 1800s to 2019 observations by the TESS satellite – and showed how this system has changed dramatically over the course of just a few generations.

The two stars began to eclipse in small amounts starting around a century ago, increasing to almost full eclipses by the 1960s. The degree of eclipsing then plummeted over the course of just a half century, and will cease around February 2021.

Read the full article at UW News.

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