Science · 6 pages · 12 min
How a star's color hints at its temperature
A star's color is mostly a report of how hot its visible surface is.
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From the opening
A star looks blue, white, yellow, or red largely because its surface radiates as a hot body whose spectrum peaks at a wavelength set by temperature. A hotter surface shifts that peak toward shorter wavelengths, so more of the escaping light sits toward the blue, while a cooler surface peaks farther toward the red. The opening covers why hotter stars look bluer, what a color index measures, and how dust reddens the light.
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Inside
- Why hotter stars look bluer
- What a color index measures
- How dust reddens the light
- When color is not temperature
- Where the idea stops applying
- A distinction worth keeping
Sources
- Wien's displacement law for thermal radiation
- Stellar color index as a temperature proxy