What does a star in space look like?
What does a star in space look like?
Stars are heavenly bodies that radiate light. They are huge balls of gas in which thermonuclear reactions occur. The gas in the star is held by gravitational forces. As a rule, stars consist of hydrogen and helium.
Thermonuclear fusion is the basis of the existence of a star
Due to the reactions of thermonuclear fusionthe temperature inside the stars can reach millions of degrees Kelvin - it is where the conversion of hydrogen into helium occurs and a huge amount of energy is released that reaches us in the form of light. On the surface of stars the temperature decreases by several orders of magnitude. Color of stars
From space, stars are seen about the same as withsurface of the Earth, with one exception: the atmosphere of our planet is scattering light, so for the observer in orbit, the stars are shining brighter. The color of stars under observation from space remains the same as under observation from the Earth, with only a few exceptions. The true color of stars, in which hydrogen almost "burned out" and the temperature dropped to 2000-5000 degrees Kelvin, differs from the observed. Yellow-orange stars of spectral class "K" are actually orange, and orange-red stars of class "M" are red.The size and shape of stars
The stars are very large. For example, the Sun weighs as much as 332,000 planets weighing the same mass as the Earth. If we add the mass of all the cosmic bodies located in our stellar system, then their weight in comparison with the mass of the Sun will be a fraction of a percent. It is generally accepted that the shape of the stars is constant. But in fact it is changing. For example, every day the diameter of the Sun decreases by two dozen meters. There is one more interesting fact - it turns out, the Sun is pulsing. With a period of once every 2 hours and 40 minutes, the surface of the star expands and then contracts at a speed of about seven kilometers per hour. Near the Sun it looks like a huge red-hot ball, on the surface of which there are always prominences - dense matter emissions that are held on the surface of the star thanks to the magnetic field. Not all the stars are as large as the Sun. For example, there are white dwarfs, whose size is one hundred times or more smaller than the diameter of the Sun. At the same time, their mass is comparable to the mass of the Sun, just the stellar matter in them is strongly condensed. There are also stars whose diameter can exceed the diameter of the Sun by hundreds of times. They are called red giants. There is a theory of the life cycle of stars, according to which our Sun in a few billion years will also turn into a red giant and increase in size so that its surface reaches the earth's orbit.
