multiple star

American  

noun

Astronomy.

1. three or more stars lying close together in the celestial sphere and usually united in a single gravitational system.

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multiple star British  

noun

1. a system of three or more stars associated by gravitation See also binary star

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multiple star Scientific  

1. A system of three or more stars that are bound together by gravity and orbit a common center of mass. The group generally appears as a single star to the naked eye. Astronomers believe that most stars in the universe are part of multiple or binary systems. Alpha Centauri, the closest star to our Sun, is a multiple star system containing three bodies.

2. See also binary star

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Etymology

Origin of multiple star

First recorded in 1840–50

Example Sentences

“Her ability to stretch the floor — being a 40% three-point shooter — and her size. You saw what she did defending multiple star players in the postseason.”

From Seattle Times • Apr. 15, 2024

In the Science Fiction Novella “Nightfall”, Isaac Asimov postulates how a civilization would face a solar eclipse in a multiple star solar system that only experienced night once every two thousand years.

From Salon • Apr. 11, 2024

Researchers have spied this sort of structure before—in WR 104 and Apep, both of which are multiple star systems with a Wolf-Rayet component.

From Scientific American • Oct. 25, 2022

We discussed in the chapter that about half of stars come in pairs, or multiple star systems, yet the first eclipsing binary was not discovered until the eighteenth century.

From Textbooks • Oct. 13, 2016

Most stars in the sky are members of double or multiple star systems.

From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan