Abstract
IN a lecture before the Newcastle-on-Tyne Astronomical Society on December 12, Mr. W. M. H. Greaves described the way in which stellar temperatures are derived from a study of the spectra of stars. All information regarding temperatures of the stars is derived from their light and its analysis. In heating a metal, while at first the radiation is almost entirely limited to the infra-red, with increase of temperature it includes wave-lengths in the visible part of the spectrum, and the proportion of blue to red light emitted increases as the temperature rises. But we cannot generally find temperature from colour, since the emissivity of bodies varies. Nevertheless, our knowledge of the temperature of stars is derived from measures of the colour of star light, the source of which is the outer layers of the star.
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Temperatures of the Stars. Nature 135, 403–404 (1935). https://doi.org/10.1038/135403b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/135403b0