how do people calculate the size and temperature if planets and stars.
In: Mathematics
Temperature for stars is fairly easy, stars emit a blackbody spectrum which is temperature dependent. If you measure the distribution of colours emitted by the star then you can determine its temperature. Hotter stars are more blue, cooler stars more red.
Size you can again work out by the light emitted. If you know how bright a star appears and you know it’s distance then you can work out how much light it is emitting in total. This depends only on its temperature and surface area, since we know the temperature this gives us the surface area. We know the relation between the size of a sphere and it’s surface area.
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