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This Hubble image shows RS Puppis, a type of variable star known as a Cepheid variable. As variable stars go, Cepheids have comparatively long periods — RS Puppis, for example, varies in brightness by almost a factor of five every 40 or so days. RS Puppis is unusual; this variable star is shrouded by thick, dark clouds of dust enabling a phenomenon known as a light echo to be shown with stunning clarity.
Like traditional stars, binary Cepheid systems result when two stars orbit around each other. In this case, both of those stars must be Cepheids – meaning they are massive compared to our Sun and much brighter. In addition, their luminosity must vary in a repeatable pattern so that we can track it consistently.
The researchers looked at nine sets of Cepheids that were believed to be binary systems but hadn’t yet been confirmed due to the difficulty of separating the two stars from each other. They pulled data from the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment database, a variable star observation project run by the University of Warsaw for over 30 years. In so doing, they could confirm, for the first time, that each of these suspected binaries contained two separate stars.
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