Surveying the Stars
Stars have a lot in common with the Sun. They are formed in great clouds of gas and dust. They can differ in size, brightness and temperature. The apparent brightness of a star is affected both by the distance the star is away from us as well as the output of light from the star. The farther away that a star is from us, the less bright the star would appear. The distance of a star can be measured by comparing the location of the star before and after the Earth has shifted.
Stars, like planets, are similar but can still be very different from one another. The luminosity, or brightness of stars, can vary greatly. Dim stars are far more common than bright stars. The color and the temperature of stars can vary just as much. The surface temperature of stars can vary from 40,000 K to less than 3000 K.
Stars can also be a part of a binary system, or a system in which two stars continually orbit one another. The different types of binary systems are visual and eclipsing binary systems. Visual binary systems are stars which we can see orbiting each other using a telescope. Eclipsing binary stars are a pair of stars in an orbit in the plane of our line of sight. When they are not eclipsed, we can see the light coming from both of the stars.
The main sequence is an area in space where most of the stars orbit in. The main sequence is organized and just by looking at the location of the star in the main sequence, we are able to learn more about the star. A main-sequence star's mass determines its luminosity and its surface temperature.
Lastly, the larger a star is, the more quickly it will die out. More massive stars live much shorter lives because they have a higher rate of fusion. They run out of hydrogen at a much quicker pace than do smaller stars.
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