The Star That Keeps Getting Weirder

From The Science Asylum.

Sirius is the brightest star in the sky and visible from most of the planet. We’ve been staring at it for 1000s of years, but the more we learn about it, the weirder it gets.

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Nick Lucid – Host, Writer, Editor, Animator
Em Lucid – Producer

Huge thanks to 12Tone and Simon Clark for lending their voices:
https://www.youtube.com/@12tone
https://www.youtube.com/@SimonClark
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VIDEO ANNOTATIONS/CARDS

Friedmann Equations:

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SOURCES

Generic History:
https://www.amnh.org/learn-teach/curriculum-collections/cosmic-horizons-book/friedrich-bessel-sirius-b
http://vega.lpl.arizona.edu/sirius/A5.html
https://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/2007JHA….38..161H

Bessel’s Original Publication:
https://adsabs.harvard.edu/pdf/1844MNRAS…6R.136B

Lewis Boss Data:
https://lccn.loc.gov/10009645

Walter Adams Publications:
https://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1911ApJ….33…64A
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1086/122337/pdf
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1086/122359/pdf
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1086/122440/pdf

Eddington Quote:
https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.173636/page/n53/

Naming Conventions:
https://www.iau.org/public/themes/naming_stars/

Planetary Nebula Info:

Sirius, our brightest star, is orbited by a white dwarf — a dead star’s core. Where is the planetary nebula that would have formed when it shed its skin?

Modern Sirius Specs:
https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.10625

Current Mystery:
https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/why-so-sirius
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LINKS TO COMMENTS


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IMAGE/VIDEO CREDITS

Hubble Image of Sirius:
https://esahubble.org/images/heic0516a/

Sirius Dog Art:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sidney_Hall_-_Urania%27s_Mirror_-_Canis_Major,_Lepus,_Columba_Noachi_%26_Cela_Sculptoris.jpg

Contact Binary:
https://www.eso.org/public/videos/eso1540a/

Ring Nebula:
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/messier-57-the-ring-nebula

Koenigsberg Observatory:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Koenigsberg_observatory.jpg

Portraits:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Friedrich_Wilhelm_Bessel_-_EESachse.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Friedrich_Wilhelm_Bessel_1846_von_Christian_Albrecht_Jensen.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alvan_Clark_an_his_sons.jpg
https://repository.aip.org/islandora/object/nbla%3A292853
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TIME CODES

00:00 Intro
00:41 Friedrich Bessel postulates Sirius B
02:41 Declination and Right Ascension
03:11 Alvan Clark discovers Sirius B
04:15 The Hunt for More Data
04:57 HR Diagrams
07:07 Stefan-Boltzmann Law
07:33 Insane Density of White Dwarfs
08:37 White Dwarfs and Planetary Nebulas
10:08 Sirius in the Distant Past
10:49 Closing Thoughts
11:11 Featured Comment
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Corrections:

07:14 While what I’m saying here is correct, the equation isn’t using traditional symbols. It would have been better to have written the equation as L ∝ A T⁴, but oh well.