Astronomers document the rise and fall of a rarely observed stellar dance

(University of Washington) Astronomers have catalogued 126 years of changes to HS Hydra, a rare evolving eclipsing binary star system. Analyzing observations from astro-photographic plates in the late 1800s to TESS observations in 2019, they show that the two stars in HS Hydra began to eclipse each other around a century ago, peaking in the 1960s. The degree of eclipsing then plummeted over the course of just a half century, and will cease around February 2021.
Source: EurekAlert! - Social and Behavioral Science - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Source Type: news