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TOPIC: Kepler's Third Law

Blobrana

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Posts: 131433

Date: Oct 15 19:20 2010

Kepler's Third Law	Permalink

How to Weigh a Star Using a Moon How do astronomers weigh a star that's trillions of miles away and way too big to fit on a bathroom scale? In most cases they can't, although they can get a best estimate using computer models of stellar structure. New work by astrophysicist David Kipping says that in special cases, we can weigh a star directly. If the star has a planet, and that planet has a moon, and both of them cross in front of their star, then we can measure their sizes and orbits to learn about the star. Read more __________________

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