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Beta Lyrae is the prototype of another class of eclipsing binaries, in which one star is embedded in a ring or disk of material that it has pulled off the other star. One star has twice the mass of the Sun; the companion star is much dimmer, though it has a mass of about 12 Suns. This binary is highly variable, and it shows signs that mass is spiraling from one star to the other at a rate of...
in star: Stellar atmospheres )...cannot be reconciled with simple, orderly rotating stars. Instead, emission and absorption lines sometimes overlap in such a way as to suggest streams of gas moving between the stars. For example, Beta Lyrae, an eclipsing binary system, has a period of 12.9 days and displays very large shifts in orbital velocity. The brighter member at visible wavelengths is a B9-type star; the other member...
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