What does the color of the star tell astronomers?

Question

It would be the temperature of the star correct?

Answer 1

Yes.  The temperature makes the stars appear different colors.

Answer 2

The color is a direct relationship to the temperature of the star.  All stars are black body radiators (you can google that) so the color temp relationship is pretty tight.  Now if we can also tell where in the life cycle a star is in, there are a lot more information we can get based on the color.  For instance, we can tell if it's a main sequence star by the luminosity and color.  which will then tell us what size the star is.  Astronomers use an HR Diagram to map out the stars attributes.  See here:

http://www4.nau.edu/meteorite/Meteorite/...

Answer 3

Well I assume you mean like Red Giants and such correct? And it depends. Bluish or white stars are generally considered to be the hottest I believe while red or orangish stars and cooler. When our sun begins to run out of gas, it will expand and became a red giant as it cools down.

But yes, generally the colour can help to distinguish temperature, size and henceforth the classification of that star.

Answer 4

It actually tells them the composition of the gas that makes up the star.  From that, though, they can tell the temperature, and many other things, but they have to know the color to know what gas it is first.

Answer 5

Distance, Temperature, Composition, and Speed.

Due to the different wavelengths, distribution of colors and amplitudes, all of the above data can be collected.

Using a spectrograph we can determine the chemical compostion by comparing it to know chemical spectrography.  From the data on the spectrograph we can determine doppler shift in the frequencies to determine wether its moving towards us or away from us.  The amount of shift tells us how fast it is moving.  By focusing on the stars light from 2 locations and measuring the angles, we can use geometry to determine distance.

Answer 6

Yes, a star's color tells astronomers it's temperature and it's age.