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    Why are stars different colors?

    Question #14937. Asked by ducky. (Dec 12 01 8:20 PM)


    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


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