What is a star?

[Admin]

It's easy enough to say what a star is: one of those bright pointy things that twinkle in the night sky. But the actual definition of a star is as rich and colorful as the stars themselves.

What is a star? : Read more

 

[Helio]

Nice article.

(yes, our sun is really white, but filtered through our blue atmosphere it appears slightly yellow).

Yeah! The "Sun ain't yeller" indeed, and it's nice to see the historical, yellow impediment get recognized.

[An article on how it got yellow would be really interesting. The story my amateur research found to the history that gave the Sun a yellow designation is one that bobs and weaves with the waves of spectroscopy, black & white photography, Capella similarity, refractor use, atmospheric particle accounts, etc.]

The next category up in stars are the ones like our sun. Medium mass, medium brightness, medium lives.

Well, this is close to being true.

 

[Helio]

The idea that the number of stars (volume density) is about the same in spiral arms as otherwise, is curious to read. Many appear quite blue due to new star formation, so wouldn't that make these regions more numerous or am I forgetting that these new stars are relatively few in number considering all the space between them, and that these new stars are so luminous that they outshine the other regions outside the spiral?