The closest stars to our Sun, Rigel Kentaurus A and B were known to be close to each other but were never visualy separated.
With a mutual orbit that lasts 80 years approximately, Rigel A, the more massive one at right, is 10% more massive than the Sun and has a radius 23% larger. Rigel B has in its turn has 90% of the Sun´s mass and is 14% smaller in radius.
The pair is 4.4 light years away in the southern constellation Centaurus.
MEADE 14” LX200, SBIG ST2K. Exposure time: 0.005 seconds in high resolution. Image development in CCDops and Adobe Photoshop CS4 Extended
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