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Last Post 2/26/2007 1:53 PM by Mandy Hagenaar

Are there green stars?

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Anonymous

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2/26/2007 12:29 PM
I was wondering if stars could be green. For example if it's not quite a yellow star or a blue star - could it be green?

Mandy Hagenaar

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2/26/2007 1:53 PM

Hi Anonymous..

Good question. The color of a star is not defined as the color as we know it, but as the blackbody radiation, which depends on the temperature of the star.
Hotter stars are more blue, with a shorter wavelength of about 475 nm.
Our sun looks yellow, which is a wavelength of about 570 nm, roughly 6,000 K (12,000 F).
Cooler stars are redder and have a wavelength of about 650 nm.

Green light has a wavelength of about 510 nm. This is somewhere between yellow and blue. A green star is therefore hotter than our sun.
(What happens if you mix yellow and blue paint?)

This is explained more clearly in
http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~soper/Stars/color.html

Mandy

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