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STAR
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CONSTELLATION
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NUCLEAR
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BRIGHTNESS
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COLOR
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TEMPERATURE
 What is a star?
A star is a huge sphere of very hot,
glowing gas. Stars produce their own
light and energy by a process called
nuclear fusion.
Are the stars same in size? Are the
stars same in color? Are the stars
equally bright?
 CHARACTERISTICS OF A STAR
They age
These and die just
lights are like
ball of fire. humans.

They have Its

various temperature
colours and is an indicator
of its age
sizes.
Star color ranges from red to blue. The color of
the star indicates its surface temperature.

Table 1. Color and temperature of selected stars

STAR COLOR SURFACE TEMPERATURE
IN CELSIUS

SUN YELLOW 5,700

PROXIMA CENTUARI RED 2,300

EPSILON IRIDARI ORANGE 4,600

VEGA WHITE 9,900

SIRIUS WHITE 10,000

ALNILAM BLUE 27,000

In reality, there are
approximately 400 billion
stars in our galaxy.
These stars differ in many
ways. We see stars of
different sizes, brightness,
and color.
The brightness of a star as
seen from Earth depends on
two factors – distance and
the actual brightness (or
absolute brightness) of the
star.
The star’s brightness as seen from
Earth is its apparent brightness.

A star’s absolute brightness is the

brightness the star would have if
all stars were the same standard
distance from the Earth.
The brightest star in the night sky is
Sirius which has an apparent
magnitude of -1.46 and an
absolute magnitude of 1.4.
Compare this to the star Rigel
which has an apparent magnitude
of 0.12 and an absolute magnitude
of -8.1
Compared to Sun, Sirius is about 27
times as powerful as the Sun, but Rigel
has a power of many thousands of
suns. In terms of distance from the
Earth, Rigel is almost 100 times farther
away than Sirius. In terms of apparent
brightness, Sirius is about twice as
bright as Rigel. Sirius looks very bright
when viewed from Earth because it is
closer to Earth.