![]() ![]() We are most familiar with yellow dwarfs, since our planet revolves around one. (Image credit: Merikanto on Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0) Sirius A, the brightest star in the night sky, is a white star. That being said, they are still very bright and quite detectible in the night sky. White stars, type A, are quite a bit cooler and less dense than blue stars. Spica in the constellation Virgo is one of the few blue stars in our galaxy. These stars owe their heat to their mass, which can range anywhere from double that of our Sun to 90 times its mass. This intensity also causes them to burn out much faster than other stars and only typically last about 40 million years. These stars fall into the O and B spectral types and tend to run about 30,000 K.īecause they burn so hot, blue stars are some of the most luminous stars out there. Just like a scorching flame here on Earth emits a blue light, blue stars burn hotter than any other color star in the universe. (Image credit: IAU and Sky & Telescope magazine (Roger Sinnott & Rick Fienberg) on Wikimedia Commons CC BY 3.0) Blue Stars International Astronomical Union Virgo chart. Main sequence stars can be one of four colors. These stars are young, full of life, and can range anywhere from just 0.08 times the mass of our Sun all the way to a size that’s 100 times bigger. As such, they remain a particular size and a spherical shape. ![]() Main sequence stars sit in perfect hydrostatic equilibrium between the force of gravity pulling inward and the forces created from nuclear fusion pushing back outwards. These stars make up the vast majority of objects in the night sky, encompassing roughly 90% of all the stars in the universe. Main sequence stars represent protostars that successfully begin nuclear fusion in their core. Types of StarsĪstronomers place the stars in our universe into one of four categories: main sequence stars, giants, supergiants, and dead stars. The brightest stars have the number 0, whereas the dimmest is number 9. This system uses letters to designate stars in decreasing temperature.Įach star’s spectral type is supplemented by a number that depicts its absolute brightness. The most common way we classify stars is through the Morgan–Keenan (MK) system, which groups these celestial objects based on color and temperature. ![]() This can lead to the complete destruction of a protostar, or a star can save itself by blowing off only its outermost layers. If a condensing cloud is too big, nuclear reactions occur so quickly that these forming stars explode from the inside out. They are incredibly rare in our universe and only make up about 1% of all star-like objects. Such objects are called brown dwarfs.īrown dwarfs never reach the size of an average star and are very dim. While the surface of the forming protostar shows some heat, it will never become a star. If a cloud is too small in size, it will contract and heat up but will never reach a temperature to begin nuclear fission. Not All Clouds Become StarsĪs interstellar clouds collapse, they don’t always meet the criteria to successfully form stars. Once a protostar reaches a core temperature of 10,000,000 Kelvin (K), nuclear fusion begins, and a star is officially born. These cores, also known as protostars, continue to heat and shrink. ![]() As sections of this cloud reach a critical density, they collapse into dense cores. In the seemingly infinite universe, gas and dust particles find each other and form clouds. ![]()
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