(ORDO NEWS) — Polish astronomers have made photometric observations of a short-period variable star known as NSVS 2983201. They found that the object is a contact binary with a mass ratio of about 0.36.
NSVS 2983201 (also known as KR00245) was originally identified as a variable with a relatively short orbital period of about 0.286 days. Subsequent observations of NSVS 2983201 suggested that it could be a contact binary.
A team of astronomers led by Bartlomiej Debski from the Astronomical Observatory of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow presented data supporting this hypothesis.
Their discovery is based on photometric data collected in October 2022 from the Apogee Alta U42 camera on the Cassegrain telescope.
The team applied two methods to derive the fundamental parameters of NSVS 2983201. One of them estimates the distance to this system at 4250 light-years, while the second calculation shows 4560 light-years.
Based on this distance, NSVS 2983201 has been found to have an absolute magnitude of 4.71 and 4.56 mag, respectively.
These results, together with the system’s mass ratio of approximately 0.3585, allowed astronomers to calculate the orbital distance and masses of the two components of NSVS 2983201.
Depending on the distance and absolute magnitude, the orbital distance was found to be 2.04 or 2.19 solar radii.
If the distance between the orbits is less, then the masses of the primary and secondary stars were estimated at 1.03 and 0.37 solar masses, respectively.
In the second scenario, the main star has a mass of about 1.27 solar masses, while its companion has almost 0.46 solar masses.
The researchers added that in the light curve that was obtained for NSVS 2983201, there is a difference between the height of the brightness maxima.
This made it possible to identify a large circumpolar star spot, presumably of magnetic origin. The authors of the article suggest that this spot belongs to the primary star.
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