Stellar Components
16 Cygni is a hierarchal triple system. Stars A and C form a close binary with a projected separation of 73 AU. The orbital elements of the A-C binary are currently unknown. At a distance of 860 AU from A is a third component designated 16 Cygni B. The orbit of B relative to the A-C pair was determined in 1999 and not updated since (as of June 2007): plausible orbits range in period from 18,200 to 1.3 million years, with a semimajor axis ranging from 877 to 15,180 AU. In addition B orbits between 100 and 160 degrees inclination, that is against the A-C pole such that 90 degrees would be ecliptical.
Both 16 Cygni A and 16 Cygni B are yellow dwarf stars like our Sun. According to data from the Geneva-Copenhagen survey, both stars have masses similar to the Sun. Age estimates for the two stars vary slightly, but 16 Cygni is likely to be much older than the Solar System, at around 10,000 million years old. 16 Cygni C is much fainter than either of these stars, and may be a red dwarf.
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“Hence, a generative grammar must be a system of rules that can iterate to generate an indefinitely large number of structures. This system of rules can be analyzed into the three major components of a generative grammar: the syntactic, phonological, and semantic components.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)