How to Use variable star in a Sentence

variable star

noun
  • This type of system is called a cataclysmic variable star.
    Phil Plait, Discover Magazine, 9 Apr. 2012
  • The ginormous star, a type of luminous blue variable star, shined between 2.5 and 3.5 times brighter than our sun.
    Jennifer Leman, Popular Mechanics, 6 July 2020
  • The image from Hubble shows a nebula (a gas cloud) that happened during one of the larger outbursts from the variable star.
    Elizabeth Howell, Forbes, 26 Apr. 2021
  • Bright idea Skowron and her colleagues mapped the Milky Way in three dimensions using 2,431 classical Cepheid variable stars.
    Nadia Drake, National Geographic, 1 Aug. 2019
  • On top of these random events, Betelgeuse is also known to be a semi-regular variable star.
    The Economist, 11 Jan. 2020
  • Betelgeuse has always been a variable star (though far less variable than at present), and there are a couple of potential causes.
    John Timmer, Ars Technica, 14 Feb. 2020
  • The telescope gathered a trove of unprecedented data on the pulsations of variable stars throughout the galaxy.
    Quanta Magazine, 10 Mar. 2015
  • The scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences used this method to create a three-dimensional map of over a thousand Cepheid variable stars in our galaxy, from the innermost core to the outer edges.
    Avery Thompson, Popular Mechanics, 5 Feb. 2019
  • For the local universe, these mile markers are Cepheid variable stars, which periodically pulse and share the same intrinsic brightness.
    National Geographic, 25 Apr. 2018
  • So far, astronomers have estimated those distances using data from 10 well-studied, long-period variable stars in the Milky Way.
    National Geographic, 25 Apr. 2018
  • In response to that question, researchers have turned their computation gun on a long-standing problem: why do luminous blue variable stars exist?
    Chris Lee, Ars Technica, 8 Oct. 2018
  • According to some models, the luminous blue variable star might have skipped the supernova stage and formed a slow-spinning black hole instead, Allan told Gizmodo.
    Jennifer Leman, Popular Mechanics, 6 July 2020
  • Haro discovered flare stars, variable stars which experience unpredictable surges in brightness.
    Brett Molina, USA TODAY, 21 Mar. 2018

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'variable star.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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