Why are stars different colors?

Gnomon

Because they burn at different temperatures. Red stars are the coolest, yellow are hotter, blue stars are the hottest of all. Dec 12 01, 11:54 PM

Brainy Blonde

Why do stars appear to change color? It's due to turbulence in the atmosphere. It's just like how things look wavy when you look over a hot grill in the summer, only on a smaller scale. An even better analogy is that looking at stars from inside our atmosphere is like bird watching from the bottom of a swimming pool: the ripples distort the picture. That's one of the main reasons why space telescopes, like Hubble, provide such sharp pictures. In addition to contributing turbulence, the atmosphere also acts like a prism when you look at stars near the horizon. Since the star colors get split into a rainbow plus the turbulence makes the star move around, it can appear like the star is changing color. See: http://www.astro.wisc.edu/tildedolan/constellations/extra/faq.html The colour of a star is determined by its temperature, the hottest stars are blue and the coolest stars are red. The Sun has a surface temperature of 5,500 degrees Celsius, its colour appears yellow. See: http://www.astro.keele.ac.uk/workx/starlife/StarpageS_26M.html There ya go!!!! Dec 14 01, 2:26 AM