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Masses
of Binary stars
From our text: Horizons, by Seeds
An example.
Suppose we measured the period in a spectroscopic binary and knew the spectral types (and
hence the masses, as we shall
see) of the component stars. The
period is 2 years (P = 2 years) and
the stars are a G star (1 solar mass) and a M star (0.5 solar masses). What is the separation?