J. P. M. Prentice discovered a form of these constructs that was visible to the naked eye for several months. That one of these constructs, DQ Herculis, is a prototype for a category of these things called intermediate polars. When these non-white dwarf constructs unusually increase in brightness and quickly go back to their quiescent state, they are called cataclysmic variables. The (*) “overcontact” one of these systems is made when a gaseous envelope is shared. They’re not pulsars, but Russell Hulse and Joseph Taylor Jr. won the Nobel Prize for their namesake one of these systems used as a test for general relativity. When these systems are detached, each star is within its own Roche lobe. For 10 points, name these star systems, consisting of two gravitationally-bound stars that are orbiting one another. ■END■
ANSWER: binary star systems [accept binary stars; accept detached binary systems; accept Hulse-Taylor binary pulsar; accept overcontact binary; accept cataclysmic variables before mention; prompt on intermediate polars before mention]
<Ezra Santos, Other Science>
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