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Old 25-July-2007, 06:34 PM
Nereid Nereid is offline
Order of Kilopi
 
Join Date: Mar 2004
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Default What about other stars?

If we consider only the steady state spectrum, and ignore (for now) stars which are quite variable (e.g. those in the instability strip); if we focus only on the SED around the blackbody peak - say an OOM or two either side* - what is the answer to the question in the OP ... for all the kinds of stars we can see?

Factors to consider include: temperature, pressure, composition.

And it might be interesting to take a deeper look at this part of the OP: "Ignoring the absorption lines": under what circumstances do absorption (or emission!) lines become important re the "continuous spectrum"? For example, can absorption lines be so broad and/or so close together that there's no continuous spectrum to be found across a large part of spectrum? What about stellar atmospheres with lots of molecules (which have much richer absorption spectra than atoms)?

*So we don't look at the x-ray or higher energy part (except if the star in question is extremely hot!), nor the microwave or radio.
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