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sun's size

Last post 03-08-2006 1:12 PM by Terry Kucera. 2 replies.
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  • 03-08-2006 10:37 AM

    sun's size

    Jeremy L,

     

    How does our sun stack up against other stars in size, and why do they change color?

     

     

  • 03-08-2006 1:08 PM In reply to

    Re: sun's size

    Hi Jeremy,

    More about the size of the Sun in the answer of Terry Kucera to Lauri B.'s question yesterday.
    Stars don't usually really change color, unless they undergo a dramatic change like supernova or a change to the
    'red giant' stage, see
    http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/971016.html
    What you see from Earth is caused by the atmosphere between the light of the stars and your eyes.

    Mandy
  • 03-08-2006 1:12 PM In reply to

    • Terry Kucera
    • Top 10 Contributor
    • Joined on 02-27-2005
    • NASA/GSFC, Greenbelt, MD, USA
    • Posts 165

    Re: sun's size

    Hi Jeremy
    In some ways you could say the sun is a medium size star - there are lots of stars larger than it (sometimes much larger) and lots smaller.

    However, there are many more smaller stars than larger ones. Nine out of ten stars have less mass than the sun, so the sun is larger than most other stars.

    The color of a star depends on its temperature. Red stars are relatively cool (for stars! - they still have surfaces at a few thousand degrees). Yellow and white ones are hotter and blue ones are even hotter.

    Most stars spend much of their lives at a single color. These "middle aged"  stars, like the sun, stay at the same size and color for a long time (about 10 billion years for the sun). At the end of this time they run out of fuel. This starts off a process in which the stars expand and cool to become red giant stars. Some very large stars (larger than the sun) even explode into supernovae during this time leaving behind a neutron star or even a black hole.

    We don't expect the sun to do this, though. We expect that at the end of its red giant stage the sun will lose it outer atmosphere leaving behind a core called a white dwarf (another color change!), which will slowly fade.

    None of this will happen for billions of years, though.

    You can read more about the colors and lives of stars at the
    Windows to the Universe web site here:
    http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/cool_stuff/tourstars_1.html

    Terry

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