"...The star, 18 Scorpii, sits about 47.5 light-years away in the constellation Scorpio...burns slightly hotter than the Sun, at 5,789 degrees Kelvin compared to 5,777 degrees. It appears to rotate slightly faster than the Sun, taking 23 days to complete a rotation rather than the Sun’s 25...At 4.2 billion years old, the distant star just a bit younger and more massive than the Sun..."
http://space.com/scienceastronomy/so...in_040107.html

Cool!

Is it an identical twin? What color is it? ](*,)

__________________
Lighten up! This is a stellar board!

"gammar"?

__________________
Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

Being an almost identical twin, I would assume that it's the same color as our sun (or Sol, or Helios, or what have you). If I'm not mistaken, a star's color is somehow related to it's mass. Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong (as I know you'll be doing as soon as I hit the "Submit" button if I am.)

Oh yeah, a star's color is also related to whether or not it's fusing heavier elements, too.

__________________
"Some see the glass half full, some see it half empty, and some see it crawling with toxic alien parasites who want to devour your pancreas." - Sgt Aarhus, from the book Ascending by James Alan Gardner

Shuks. It would be nice to at least get my signature correct. ops:

Thanks.

__________________
Lighten up! This is a stellar board!

In general, a star's color is simply dependent upon it's surface temperature. Mass alone will not tell you the color. For instance, massive stars can be more than one color. There are blue ones and red ones. This is really quite a topic in itself. I am no authority in the matter.

Some stars, as I have learned here ["Color of the Sun" thread in Book forum] from the BA, exhibit color contrary to their surface temp. (e.g. certain brown dwarfs look blueish). This is due to absorbtions in their spectrum.

I believe our Sun, as seen from space, may not be white but may be blueish-green. The idea is that full sunlight overloads our ability to distinguish the true color so all we see in space is bright white. If the sunlight intensity is lowered uniformly, it's color may surprise us.

A true twin star to the sun might help here. I would presume, however, that our atmosphere would also mask it's true color as well. Due to the close proximity of 18 Scorpii, maybe the Hubble could get a true color image of it.

Hmmm....Anyone know if the Huble can obtain fair true color images?

__________________
Lighten up! This is a stellar board!

If you look at the image of Scorpius accompanying the article, it shows about a thousand stars and 18 Scorpii is very faint. Does the research really mean that 18 Scorpii is the only one that is about the same mass, temperature and age as the sun? How many do you suppose they've checked? I would guess that most of the other stars in the photo are bigger and farther away.

I thought it was deliberate!

__________________
Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

No! What do you think I am, a comedian! ....Well, ok :wink: :wink:

__________________
Lighten up! This is a stellar board!