Why Do Stars Have Different Colors?

What Crafty Clover says in this video

Intro

Hi there, curious minds! I'm Crafty Clover! Let's discover something amazing. Why do stars have different colors?

The Big Idea

Stars have different colours because they have different temperatures! Hotter stars glow blue-white. Cooler stars glow orange or red. Colour is a temperature clue painted across the sky!

Hot Blue Stars

Step one: hot stars are blue-white. The hottest stars are more than 10,000 degrees on the surface. They glow a bright blue-white colour, and they burn through their fuel quickly.

Middle Stars

Step two: medium stars are yellow. Our Sun is a medium-heat star, with a surface around 5,500 degrees Celsius. That makes it shine yellowish-white, which our eyes call yellow.

Cooler Red Stars

Step three: cooler stars are orange or red. Their surfaces are only about 3,000 degrees, which is still super hot. Like the glowing red wire in a toaster, cooler heat glows red, while hotter heat looks white or blue.

A Closer Look

Let's take a closer look! Blue stars are the hottest of all. White stars are very hot, too. Yellow stars, like our Sun, are in the middle. Red stars are the coolest, but still very hot!

Quick Facts

Quick facts! Rigel, in Orion, is a bluish-white star. Betelgeuse is a red giant, in the same constellation, and it is huge. The colour of a star tells us how hot it is. Stargaze with a grown-up, and keep your hands off hot toasters.

Think Like a Scientist

Now, think like a scientist! With a grown-up, find one reddish star and one bluish-white star tonight. The constellation Orion has both. Look carefully at the colours, and then decide which star is hotter. Share what you discover with a grown-up.

Outro

Blue stars run hotter than red ones. Science is amazing! Crafty Clover can be found on Amazon Books, Google Bookstore, and Apple Books. Available for purchase or download! Bye for now!