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60. Fast Binaries
In our galaxy, about 60% of all stars are grouped in closely spaced pairs called binaries. Fortunately, our Sun does not have a binary partner. If it did, temperatures on Earth would vary too much to support life. The mutual gravitational attraction between stars in a binary pair causes them to orbit each other, just as the Moon orbits Earth. The closer paired stars are to each other, the faster they orbit. Their orbits do not change appreciably, even over long periods of time.
Two particular stars are so close that they orbit each other every 11 minutes! This implies their centers are about 80,000 miles apart.a By way of comparison, our Sun, a typical star, is more than 800,000 miles in diameter. Other close binaries are also known.b
The theory of stellar evolution was developed by arranging (on paper) different types of stars in a sequence according to brightness and color. Stellar evolutionists believe that stars slowly change from one type to another. However, scientists have never observed such changes, and many stars do not fit this pattern. According to stellar evolution, a typical star’s volume, late in its lifetime, expands to about a million times that of our Sun and finally collapses to become a small star about the size of Earth (a white dwarf) or even smaller (a neutron star).
Only such tiny stars could have their centers 80,000 miles apart and still orbit each other. Obviously, these fast binary stars did not evolve from larger stars, because larger stars orbiting so closely would collide. If two stars cannot evolve into a condition that has them orbiting each other every 11 minutes, one wonders whether stars evolve at all.