How do scientists measure the temperature of stars?

Question

How do scientists measure the temperature of stars?

Answer 1

THEY DONT GUESS...

the COLOUR of a star is a proxy of the star's SURFACE temperature.

Red is cool (3000 celcius) then orange is hotter, then yellow (like our sun which is about 6000), then white and then blue is the hottest.

To really accurately measure the temperature, scientists will make the star light pass through a 'prism', this splits up the light into a full spectrum (all the colours of the rainbow).

However some parts of the spectrum will be missing (look up absorbtion lines). I wont go into it beasue you need to know how atoms emit light and why, and i dont know if you do know that.

But basically, by knowing where these missing parts are, they can match these spectrums up with known ones (done on earth), and thus see what's the temperature

key words...

SPECTROSCOPY

ABSORBTION LINES

HERTZSPRUNG-RUSSELL DIAGRAM

SPECTRUM

Answer 2

they guess?

Answer 3

its a guesstimate