page_title: Heartbeat star
hierarchical_section_title: Heartbeat star
caption_attribution_description: English: This artist's concept depicts "heartbeat stars," which have been detected by NASA's Kepler Space Telescope and others. The illustration shows two heartbeat stars swerving close to one another in their closest approach along their highly elongated orbits around one another. The mutual gravitation of the two stars would cause the stars themselves to become slightly ellipsoidal in shape.
context_page_description: Heartbeat stars are pulsating variable binary star systems with vibrations caused by tidal forces. The name "heartbeat" comes from the similarity of the light curve of the star with what a heartbeat looks like through an electrocardiogram if their brightness was mapped over time. Many heartbeat stars have been discovered with the Kepler Space Telescope.
context_section_description: Heartbeat stars are pulsating variable binary star systems with vibrations caused by tidal forces. The name "heartbeat" comes from the similarity of the light curve of the star with what a heartbeat looks like through an electrocardiogram if their brightness was mapped over time. Many heartbeat stars have been discovered with the Kepler Space Telescope.
caption: Artist's conception of two heartbeat stars and a companion star. (NASA/JPL-Caltech)
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