We can see the beauty of white, yellow, red, orange, and blue stars, but not green. Why is this?
In: Physics
All objects emit electromagnetic EM radiation (“light”) based on their temperature. They emit pretty much all frequencies, peaking at a certain point and tapering off in either direction. An object that is “red hot” peaks in the infra-red range, and as we look at the visible spectrum, the light is more intense at the red end and tapering off towards the blue, so the object glows red. A much hotter object will peak in the ultra-violet range; the visible portion of its light will be dimmer* in the red end and brighter in the blue, making the object appear “blue-hot.”
*(relatively. Overall output is much higher for the hotter object, but the “red” side of its radiation curve is relatively dimmer than the “blue” side.)
So what about something in between, something that peaks right in the middle of the green part of the visible spectrum? Well the curve doesn’t have a sharp point in the middle, it’s actually relatively flat on top (and the visible spectrum is comparatively extremely narrow), so anything that peaks near the visible spectrum will have the intensity spread pretty evenly across all frequencies that we can see, making the object appear “white hot” instead.
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