Starship Asterisk*

In today's artist conception of the quadruple star system HD 98800
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap070730.html
the dust clouds appear to be in a circular orbit. I'm wondering, however, whether dust orbiting any double star system ought to exhibit a more complex pattern. I have no idea what that pattern would look like.

Nevertheless, it's a very striking image.

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap070730.html

It is incredible that we actually have observed a system like this to exist! Be a good place for a hotel

I have doubts about the actual nature of the dust rings as well, for starters I very much doubt it would have such well defined edges.

Does anyone have any info on the relative masses (solar masses) of each start in this system? I had a quick look at some of the links but couldn't find anything...

I'M sure the star pair orbit each other. I'd be curious as to what the seasons would be like on the planets that may be orbiting them. Probably from the furnace to the deep freeze!
Orin

If you get out far enough on the orbit, the two stars act as one point mass. And if the dust pattern is as far out as the picture shows, it could very well be similar to a circular dust ring. It might have eddys, but would be generally circular.

It would not be circular, however, if the other pair of stars happened to sweep closely to the dust ring.

Relooking at the picture, it shows two dust rings. The outer one might be fine, if as you said, with much less defined borders. But I would venture a guess that the inner one would not be able to exist in such a stable orbit.

Its funny that Larry Niven never told us in RINGWORLD that there were two suns!

I would think the rings would be elliptical, much the same as the orbits of the planets and asteroids around Sol. One focus of the ellipse would be the center of mass of the inner pair of stars. The motion of the inner pair around their center of gravity would probably perturb the rings, but stability could probably be acheived. Modeling it mathematically would probably be quite a chore.

I think it's strange that only one pair has rings. Maybe the other pair has fainter rings like Neptune and Uranus.

I believe that each pair of stars consists of a K-type and an M-type star, all of which are 'pre-main sequence stars'. The Ba component (K7) is 0.7-0.95 M(s), and the Bb component (M-type) is 0.5-0.65 M(s). The larger Aa component (K5) is around 1.1 M(s), and I can't seem to find anything about the mass of the Ab component.

In a two - or even more a four sun system, I presume the orbits of planets might look really bizarre. Has anybody modelled this?