After Capella, Menkalinan is the second brightest of Auriga's stars. It is a binary
star more than eighty light years from the Solar System.
A pair of dancing stars: at the core of the Menkalinan system are twin white stars circling
a common centre of gravity. The event shown here happens once every 47½ hours: from the Earth, one star appears to partially eclipse the other, causing a slight loss in magnitude.
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