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[hohonator]

just want to know.....can stars orbit other stars?

[atomic7732]

Yes... Those would be binary stars and multiple star systems like Mizar, Porrima, Polaris, Alpha Centauri, Gliese 663, Ross 614... About half of all stars have companions.

[Darvince]

About half of all stars have companions.

Why do people take that as meaning half of all star systems are binary... It actually means that about 20% of star systems are binary or ternary, or more. (25% of star systems if there are only single stars and binaries, 20% is about what it would actually be)

[space guy1]

wouldn't it be about 33%? Heres how I figured it (this is assuming all multiple star systems (mss) are binary) lets say there are 100 stars and 50 are part of an mss that makes 25 systems added to the 50 single stars.  that gives 75 systems total of which 25 or 33% are binaries.  drop that a bit for systems with more stars (i'll drop it by the same amount, or 5) that gives us 28% of systems are multiple star systems.  I realize that im being nitpicky but I am anal about those kind of things.  And you might be doing it right and if so I would like to learn what I am doing wrong.

[Darvince]

Wait actually it would be your post count