Why are the stars different colors?

Son of The Household Cavalry

It is all to do with parentage. Sharon Stones parents were caucasian while Eddie Murphy's were not. Feb 26 02, 2:26 AM

Gnomon

It's mainly to do with their age. Stars burn in different ways are different points in their lifecycle and also depending on how big they are. The hotter they burn, the bluer they are. The cooler ones burn yellow, orangle or even red. While we think of blue and green as cool colours, in stars they are the hot ones. Feb 26 02, 3:02 AM

eliasen

eliasen says: Stars are different colors solely because of their temperatures. It has nothing to do with their ages, although their *surface temperatures* may be different at different times in their life, which is the only reason their color is different. Radiating atoms don't know how 'old' they are. The color gradations given above are really weird and wrong. How in the world could white be the coolest? When your stove is white-hot, is that its coolest setting? Can you name one 'green' star? A star is a pretty good approximation to a blackbody--its radiation at each wavelength is a well-known function of its temperature. Below, you can plug in surface temperatures to find the peak wavelength (and a rough approximation to the color.) http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/wien.html Tue May 28 13:59:05 CDT 2002 The human eye doesn't detect colors of stars well... they're too small (and usually dim) to activate a bunch of cone cells in the eye. Stars radiate light all the way across the visual spectrum, making them not distinctly any single color. A good way to see the *difference* in colors of stars is to take a long-exposure photograph of them with a camera (preferably attached to a telescope) that's slightly out of focus. You can even allow the stars to drift through your field as you're taking the exposure, and you can move the camera more and more out of focus every couple of minutes. This gives good results and the differences in color are quite visible. Wed May 29 01:15:18 CDT 2002 (As one entry - McG) May 25 03, 2:20 PM