My buddy at the Griffith Observatory cleared up a big misconception I had about star colors

I was looking at that recent photo of the Orion Nebula someone posted, and I mentioned to my friend Dave who works at Griffith how I always thought blue stars were hotter just because they looked cooler. He laughed and went on this whole tangent about how blue stars are actually way hotter than red ones, like tens of thousands of degrees hotter. It made me go back and look at all those deep space photos I've saved on my phone and see them totally different. I spent like two hours last night just browsing the subreddit and checking the color of every star in every image. Now I'm second guessing every time I see a red giant in a photo because it's actually a colder star that's just super huge. Has anyone else had their mind flipped on something basic like this after years of looking at astro pics?

3 comments

3 Comments

felixlee21d ago

Dave at Griffith cleared this up for me too a few years back. The whole Wien's law thing about temperature and color is wild once you actually sit down with it. First time I saw a picture of Betelgeuse after that I couldn't stop thinking about how it's barely glowing compared to Rigel.

the_adam21d ago

@angela_grant what really gets me is when you compare stars of the same class but different ages, like how does the color shift actually play out over millions of years?

angela_grant21d ago

Yeah I totally get that feeling, it's one of those things that just sticks with you once it clicks. @felixlee you put it perfectly about Betelgeuse, it really makes you see those star photos differently knowing how close some are to burning out.