variable star

Example Sentences

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Recent Examples of variable star Stars that change in brightness, known as variable stars, get brighter and dimmer; supernovas burst into view and then gradually fade away; and thousands of objects too faint to see with the unaided eye, like asteroids, move steadily across the sky. Dan Falk, Smithsonian Magazine, 20 June 2024 Using these variable stars, scientists can measure the distances to galaxies up to about 100 million light-years from us. Quanta Magazine, 19 Jan. 2024 Henrietta Swan Leavitt developed a key method for measuring astronomical distances that is based on the pulsations of Cepheid variable stars. WIRED, 12 Nov. 2023 Photograph: Alamy Hubble in turn wrote up his variable star measurements and convinced everyone that Andromeda was indeed a separate galaxy. WIRED, 12 Nov. 2023 See All Example Sentences for variable star
Recent Examples of Synonyms for variable star
Noun
  • That year observations of a merging neutron star revealed that gravitational waves and electromagnetic waves arrived at Earth within three seconds of each other—after traversing a distance of 130 million light-years.
    Paul M. Sutter, Scientific American, 26 Feb. 2025
  • This is significant because globular clusters are associated with other powerful events associated with older stars, including the collisions and mergers of two neutron stars or a white dwarf collapsing under its own gravity.
    Robert Lea, Space.com, 25 Feb. 2025
Noun
  • Reports of earthquake felt away from source (red star) on February 14, 2025.
    Ian Dexter Palmer, Forbes, 21 Feb. 2025
  • During his memorial, his coffin was secured on the van and draped in the Syrian flag—not the one that hung from Assad’s palace but an earlier version, with three red stars, that had been revived as an emblem of the revolution.
    Jon Lee Anderson, The New Yorker, 27 Jan. 2025
Noun
  • This nova is especially exciting because the white dwarf star on which it is found exists in a particularly unusual binary star system.
    Keith Cooper, Space.com, 20 Feb. 2025
  • Roman will be looking at the motion of the universe in the visible range too, thanks to what are known as type 1a supernovas—exploding stars that are part of a binary star system.
    Jeffrey Kluger/Greenbelt, TIME, 8 Feb. 2025
Noun
  • Rising above 45 meters and crowned by a giant star of 17 meters in diameter, this walk-through tree offers light shows and music every hour from 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. and is accompanied by eight other trees of lights instead of hanging decoration.
    Cecilia Rodriguez, Forbes, 16 Dec. 2024
  • Leave tradition behind and commit to a modern aesthetic with these pretty hanging sphere lights that look like giant stars.
    Hannah Rice, Rolling Stone, 27 Nov. 2024
Noun
  • In this arrangement, a white dwarf star usually pulls mass from a nearby companion star.
    Jack Knudson, Discover Magazine, 14 Feb. 2025
  • However, if the white dwarf progenitor star exists in a binary with another star, this stellar corpse can begin vampirically stripping material from its companion.
    Robert Lea, Space.com, 27 Jan. 2025
Noun
  • Additional Bearish Factors Multiple analysts took a broader approach, citing a range of variables as being behind bitcoin’s recent depreciation.
    Charles Lloyd Bovaird II, Forbes, 26 Feb. 2025
  • But this year saw a freak variable that prompted DraftKings to adjust the lines.
    J. Kim Murphy, Variety, 26 Feb. 2025

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Cite this Entry

“Variable star.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/variable%20star. Accessed 5 Mar. 2025.

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