Post
by aichip » Sun Feb 11, 2007 12:00 pm
I have not calculated the needed density for star deformation, but as an example, stars in our area of the galaxy are roughly 7 light years apart on the average, where stars in the galactic core are as close as 1/4 light year on average.
This gives the results that the mean surface temperatures are significantly higher and yields slightly shorter lifespans for those stars. In globular clusters, the stars can average about 1/2 to 1 light year apart, but it depends on the cluster.
For stars to deform each other, we would have to look at tidal forces and not the actual gravitation of the stars. For a star to deform, it has to experience a differential orbital velocity from one side to the other, and since stars are typically fairly large objects, this can actually be a slight pull and still yield a fair deformation.
Since a star such as our Sun is nearly 1.4 million kilometers in diameter, another star of similar mass that is as far from it as Saturn is from the Sun might yield a slight visible deformation. However, for the really large deformations we would expect that the two would be about a hundred million kilometers or less apart. Close binaries can be a few million kilometers and we can see star material pulled into long streamers from one to the other.
So even at the galactic core, you will not see significant deformation unless it is in a binary system.
Cheers!
Sir Charles W. Shults III