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    Bohr's Star Model

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    Shreyansh Rai
    The colors of stars range from blue to red depending on their surface temperature, with the hottest stars being blue around 25,000 K and the coolest stars being red around 3,000 K. The Morgan-Keenan classification system categorizes stars into classes based on color and temperature, from hottest O blue stars to coolest M red stars. A star's color indicates both its temperature and age, as stars consume fuel and decrease in size over their lifetime.

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    Bohr's Star Model

    Uploaded by

    Shreyansh Rai
    19 views4 pages
    The colors of stars range from blue to red depending on their surface temperature, with the hottest stars being blue around 25,000 K and the coolest stars being red around 3,000 K. The Morgan-Keenan classification system categorizes stars into classes based on color and temperature, from hottest O blue stars to coolest M red stars. A star's color indicates both its temperature and age, as stars consume fuel and decrease in size over their lifetime.

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    The colors of stars range from blue to red depending on their surface temperature, with the hottest stars being blue around 25,000 K and the coolest stars being red around 3,000 K. The Morgan-Keenan classification system categorizes stars into classes based on color and temperature, from hottest O blue stars to coolest M red stars. A star's color indicates both its temperature and age, as stars consume fuel and decrease in size over their lifetime.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    19 views4 pages

    Bohr's Star Model

    Uploaded by

    Shreyansh Rai
    The colors of stars range from blue to red depending on their surface temperature, with the hottest stars being blue around 25,000 K and the coolest stars being red around 3,000 K. The Morgan-Keenan classification system categorizes stars into classes based on color and temperature, from hottest O blue stars to coolest M red stars. A star's color indicates both its temperature and age, as stars consume fuel and decrease in size over their lifetime.

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    The colors of stars from hottest to coldest are blue, blue-white, yellow, orange, and red.

    The colors of the stars indicate their surface temperatures. There are five star
    colors: blue, white, yellow, orange, and red. The hottest stars are blue, with
    temperatures around 25,000 K. Red is the color of the coldest stars, which have
    surface temperatures of approximately 3,000 K.
    The 5 Colors of Stars
    While the five star colors are blue, white, yellow, orange, and red, there are in-
    between colors. The color classes are O (blue), B (bluish), A (blue-white), F (white),
    yellow-white (G), orange (K), and red (M). Remember the order with the mnenomic
    “Oh Be a Fine Girl, Kiss Me”.

    Annie Jump Cannon devised the Harvard spectral classification, which orders stars
    according to their apparent color as viewed from Earth. At the time, astronomers
    had not made the connection between star color and surface temperature. The
    modern classification system (Morgan-Keenan) uses the same classes, but
    approaches colors based on spectra and luminosity.

    Star Color Class Approx. Temperature Examples

    Blue O 25,000 K Rigel, Spica, Bellatrix 


    Star Color Class Approx. Temperature Examples

    White F 10,000 K Sirius, Vega

    Yellow G 6,000 K Proxima, the Sun

    Orange K 4,000 K Aldebaran, Arcturus

    Red M 3,000 K Antares, Betelgeuse

    The bluest stars are not only hotter than the Sun, but also much larger (12 to 25
    solar diameters) and more massive (20 to 100 solar masses). Meanwhile, red stars
    are cooler and smaller (only 0.1 to 0.6 solar diameters and 0.08 to 0.5 solar
    masses). As stars go through their lives, they consume fuel, decrease in size, and
    shift in color and temperature. So, star color indicates its temperature and also its
    age.

    The Morgan-Keenan star color classification uses the original Harvard spectral classification colors. (image: Rursus, CC 3.0)

    Factors That Affect Star Color


    The star colors look different once you get outside the Earth’s atmosphere. From
    Earth, most stars appear white or bluish because they are too dim for the human
    eye to perceive color. So, many people assume photographs taken from Hubble or
    other space telescopes are colorized. In reality, stars really are much more vibrant
    and colorful than what we see at night.

    But, even the space telescopes don’t see a star’s true colors. Stars moving away
    from us are red-shifted because of the Doppler effect. Another factor that affects
    color is extinction. Extinction occurs when cosmic dust between the star and the 
    viewer absorbs and scatters light. This decreases a star’s apparent brightness and
    also its color. The dust scatters blue light more than red light, so stars appear
    redder than their true color. This effect is interstellar reddening. A star’s chemical
    composition or metallicity also affects its color. For example, carbon-rich stars
    contain molecules that absorb blue and violet light, turning the stars deep red.

    Of course, the most significant factor influencing star color is human vision. Even
    though a telescope sees many reddish stars, the human eye is more sensitive to blue
    light than red light. So, we see blue stars, but miss most of the red stars. Our eyes
    do a poor job of distinguishing color of point light sources, making stars mainly
    appear white. Also, human color vision perceives the net effect of a star’s color and
    not its spectral peaks. Again, this leads to stars appearing mostly white.
    Are There Green Stars?
    There are no green stars because star colors come from their black-body spectrum.
    In other words, the color depends on temperature, much like a candle flame or
    heated bar of metal. The black-body spectrum does not include all of the colors of
    the rainbow.

    That being said, there are stars which have peak intensity in
    the green portion of the spectrum. These stars don’t look
    green because they also emit other colors of light. The way
    the human eye works, the only way to see green is if it’s the
    only color.

    But, if you photograph stars or look up at the night sky, you


    Albireo A and B
    might see a green-looking star. This happens when the (Hewholooks, CC 3.0)
    atmosphere distorts light before it reaches our eyes. The
    atmosphere is also what makes stars “twinkle”. 
    One other way of seeing a green star is when the eye sees separate blue and yellow
    stars as one single point of light. For example, Albireo A (yellow) and Albireo B
    (blue) appear as a double star. To the naked eye or unmounted binoculars, the pair
    appears as a single green star. A telescope resolves the individual stars as yellow
    and blue.
    What About Violet Stars
    The black-body spectrum allows for violet, which occurs at a temperature around
    39,700 K. That is quite a bit hotter than a blue star (~25000 K). However, the
    Morgan-Keenan (MK) classification system allows for Class O (“blue”) stars that
    emit significant ultraviolet radiation. While humans can’t see this light, these
    extremely hot stars are essentially violet.

    Purple stars are another matter entirely. Purple is the eye’s interpretation of a mix
    of red and blue. Stars that emit red and blue light also emit other colors of the
    spectrum, so they appear white. The only time you’ll see a purple star is when the
    atmosphere shifts the star’s true color.
    What Color Is the Sun?
    Our Sun is an example of a star that emits peak light in the green region of the
    spectrum. But, the Sun appears white as viewed from space because its apparent
    color is an average of all emitted wavelengths (which include red and blue). From
    Earth, sunlight is yellow because the atmosphere scatters blue light. Near sunrise
    and sunset, scattering is more pronounced and the Sun appears orange or even red.
    References
    Habets, G. M. H. J.; Heinze, J. R. W. (November 1981). “Empirical bolometric
    corrections for the main-sequence”. Astronomy and Astrophysics Supplement
    Series. 46: 193–237.
    Hertzprung, Ejnar (1908). “Über die Sterne der Unterabteilung c und ac nach
    der Spektralklassifikation von Antonia C. Maury”. Astronomische Nachrichten.
    179 (24): 373–380. doi:10.1002/asna.19081792402
    Kaler, James B. (1997). Stars and Their Spectra: An Introduction to the
    Spectral Sequence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-
    521-58570-5.
    Weidner, Carsten; Vink, Jorick S. (December 2010). “The masses, and the mass
    discrepancy of O-type stars”. Astronomy and Astrophysics. 524. A98.
    doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201014491


    C t i

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