In the news recently is the binary star system KIC 9832227 which is a Contact Binary with a common envelope due to collide into a brilliant red nova in 2022 plus or minus a year. Contact Binaries, sometimes called W Ursae Majoris Variables are stars close enough to each other to stretch towards one another and share their outer atmosphere envelope and thus have the appearance of a rapidly spinning peanut. Contact primaries are not necessarily the same size and luminosity. The archetypal contact binary is W Ursae Majoris in which the secondary mass is roughly half that of the primary mass. I think it would be a lovely thing to see if, at some future point, binary stars that are generated within a certain distance to each other might blob together in this manner.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_binary
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W_Ursae_Majoris
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_envelope
*edit* whoops I confused the state of being a contact binary as being similar to the state of having a common envelope just like the articles said. Contact binaries are stable, common envelopes are a countdown to destruction and both occur for different reasons. I guess I could just say I was inspired to post about contact binaries because of the recent news.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_binary
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W_Ursae_Majoris
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_envelope
*edit* whoops I confused the state of being a contact binary as being similar to the state of having a common envelope just like the articles said. Contact binaries are stable, common envelopes are a countdown to destruction and both occur for different reasons. I guess I could just say I was inspired to post about contact binaries because of the recent news.
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