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Star actually have colors (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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While camping, I noticed that if you look long enough at almost any star, you start seeing some tiny, subtle colors in that star. Even crazier, they sometimes flicker between more colors. In my case orange, blue and something like cyan.

Besides constellations, what else could you observe regarding starts, with the naked eye?

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Stars can appear red or blue depending on the direction they are traveling. It has to do with the frequency of light they put out. As they move away the frequency gets lower, which we interpret as red. As they get closer the frequency gets faster which we interpret as blue.

I am not an astronomer or even a casual stargazer. I took a single class in Astronomy in college and this was a neat fact I picked up. I remember next to nothing else from the class other than the fact that you can fit every planet between the earth and moon.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

This is all correct and is commonly known as redshift or blueshift. It’s the same idea as when a car or train passes by and you hear the pitch get higher as it approaches you, and then lower as it leaves you.

To add to it though, stars themselves (regardless of our perspectives on them) do come in different colors. Betelgeuse is an easy star to find in the night sky that has a distinctly redder color compared to most stars. It’s the left armpit star in the constellation Orion.

Stars have different colors based on many factors like their composition and how hot they burn.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't think redshift applies to stars, as all the stars we can see are in the milky way and not moving away from us, not sure of there's any galaxies you can see with the naked eye

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

It does apply, technically, but yeah the effect is too small to see with the naked eye

A few nearby galaxies are visible, most notably Andromeda, but still redshift isn't naked eye visible for these

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