Red Dwarf Stars Research Paper

Stars are not just twinkling lights in the night sky that provide a beautiful view to gaze up at, in fact they are actually very complex. There are a lot of different types of stars in the universe, and one of the many things they are classified by is their temperature and the types of elements they absorb. Besides that, stars can also be categorized by their size, color, luminosity, or brightness, and their age. There can be old stars and there can also be young stars. For example, a young star would be one who has just been born, and an old star would be one that has been around for several hundred, or even several thousand years. An old star would be something such as a Supergiant star, and the young stars, would be something such as the …show more content…
Red Dwarf stars are very small and it is said that, “lighter stars are much more plentiful than heavier stars” and that is why there is such a large amount of them (Gregersen, “Red Dwarf Star | Astronomy”). These stars are known to have a, “mass of between 7.5% and 40% of the Sun” (O’Callaghan, “Red Dwarfs: The Fascinating Stars That Live for Trillions of Years). Due to the fact that Red Dwarfs are such small stars, they do not shine as bright as others. The luminosity of a star completely depends on the size of the star and thus the smaller the star is, the less bright it is, and the harder it is to see. Although Red Dwarfs are not very bright, and are impossible to be seen by the naked eye, they build up three-fourths of the Milky Way (Gregersen, “Red Dwarf Star | Astronomy”). They can be spotted through the use of a telescope, and the Red Dwarfs most commonly seen are Barnard’s Star, Luyten’s Star, Gliese 674, and 40 Eridani C. The four of these stars have a magnitude in the range of 9.0 to 11.0 (Dickinson, “14 Red Dwarf Stars to View with Backyard Telescopes”). However, none of these stars are found in the same constellations. Barnard’s Star is found in Ophiuchus, a constellation that appears to look like a man holding a snake. Luyten’s Star is found in Canis Minor, which in Greek means the smaller dog. Gliese …show more content…
Since Red Dwarfs have such a small mass, they outlive many other stars. In an online article written by Jonathon O’Callaghan, he talks about the energy emitted from stars and how when it comes to Red Dwarfs the process is different. O’Callaghan states that in most stars, “energy from the core is radiated out from the surface in a process known as convection, [which causes them to lose] a large amount of mass in the process.” On the other hand however, Red Dwarfs are, “fully convective, [and this] means that helium does not accumulate at the core, and the stars can continue to burn hydrogen for a much longer time than other stars” (O’Callaghan, “Red Dwarfs: The Fascinating Stars That Live for Trillions of Years”). Along with this, Red Dwarfs are expected to burn fuel for as long as ten trillion years. The main reason that Red Dwarfs live for such a long time is because their mass is so low and they burn off fuel much slower than other

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