3203: Binary Star

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
Revision as of 05:40, 5 February 2026 by 2603:8000:5e00:2913:ee13:7145:32d7:21b9 (talk) (Transcript: cat)
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Binary Star
The discovery of a fully typographical star system comes with a big asterisk.
Title text: The discovery of a fully typographical star system comes with a big asterisk.

Explanation

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Transcript

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Discussion

here before the explanation Qwertyuiopfromdefly (talk) 04:47, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

Me too 115.70.50.73
It was me as well :::;) 216.25.182.141 05:34, 5 February 2026 (UTC)
Here before the comments 82.13.184.33 09:15, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

Randall has been, uh, funnier… I thought I must be missing something, a clever joke or some astronomers insider, but no—that's really all there was to it. Well. 2a02:908:c30:5000:b86c:d747:e182:c327 (talk) 07:54, 5 February 2026 (UTC) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Nice to see that Randall has graduated from the woes of 1029, and now can draw Morocco-style stars :-) --2001:A62:5F7:FB01:BF80:8165:D7C9:B014 08:24, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

The idea of pointed stars alongside normal ones is probably a reference to the James Web Space Telescope. In its images, very bright stars have diffraction spikes, caused by the segmented hexagonal primary mirrors and the three-strut support of the secondary mirror. However, these form 8 spiked images not 5. The Hubble Space Telescope forms 4 spike images, however the effect was not so noticeable with Hubble. 2A12:F41:145B:1300:C59:505F:B2DB:7572 12:19, 5 February 2026 (UTC) dww-uk
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