Lecture 08: Stellar Masses & Radii

How do we measure the masses and radii of stars? This lecture describes the three basic types of binary stars, and how each are used to measure the masses of stars. Details of how to measure stellar radii are beyond the scope of this class, but we briefly describe the direct measurements of stellar radii. Recorded 2006 January 12 in 1008 Evans Laboratory on the Columbus campus of The Ohio State University.