What kind of star is our sun classified as

Countless musicians have written songs about the Sun. If you're Superman or a fellow Kryptonian, your powers are heightened by the yellow glow of our Sun, and you can even dispose of dangerous materials, as Superman and Superboy did, by hurling them into the Sun.

Astronauts are supposed to use a bomb to divert the flare. To save humanity, astronauts try to reignite the Sun with a bomb, though things don't quite go as planned. Instead, people build giant rocket thrusters to move the Earth to a new star system. The Sun is a star. It is the center of our solar system. The Sun is a hot ball of glowing gases. It keeps our planet warm enough for living things to grow.

It gives us light so we can see. Overview Our Sun is a 4. The Latest. Studying the Edge of the Sun's Magnetic Bubble. Nothing could live on the Sun, but its energy is vital for most life on Earth. Kid-Friendly Sun The Sun is a star. The solar system is encased in a bubble called the heliosphere, which separates us from the vast galaxy beyond. Full Moon Guide: October - November Full Moon Guide: September - October Models and lab tests suggest the asteroid could be venting sodium vapor as it orbits close to the Sun, explaining its increase in brightness.

The images show Venus approaching from the left while the Sun is off-camera to the upper right. It is estimated to be more than four and a half billion years old and is the closest star to us. Its great mass gives it gravitational power on all the planets in the solar system and this is the reason Earth stays in orbit around the sun. James Parducci has written professionally since Unique Facts About the Sun. Parts of a Star.

How Does the Sun Release Energy? What is Earth's Position in the Solar System? Example of a White Dwarf Star. Condensation Theory of the Solar System. Life Cycle of a Medium-Sized Star. Facts About the Sun's Energy. Stars just like our own Sun that burn hydrogen into helium to produce energy. The classification of Stars Atlas of the Universe. This system is referred to as the Morgan Keenan system. The Morgan-Keenan MK system is used in modern astronomy a classification system to organize stars according to their spectral type and luminosity class.

When you look up the night sky on a clear night, it may seem as if most stars are cool, blue stars that would fall under the B, or A class of stars. However, main-sequence Red dwarf stars are the most common kind of stars in our Universe. Our own Sun is a main-sequence, G-type star, but most of the stars in the Universe are much cooler and have low mass. In fact, most of the main-sequence Red dwarfs are too dim to be seen with our naked eye from Earth.

Red dwarfs burn slowly, meaning they can live for a long time, relative to other star types. The closest star to Earth Proxima Centauri , is a Red dwarf.

Red dwarfs include the smallest of the stars in the Universe, weighing between 7. Although main-sequence Red dwarfs are the most common stars in the universe, there are 7 main types of stars in total. Here is some information about each type of known star in our universe. Below, is a simple star color temperature chart that provides examples of some of the most well-known stars in the night sky, and their colors.

A protostar is what you have before a star forms. A protostar is a collection of gas that has collapsed down from a giant molecular cloud. The protostar phase of stellar evolution lasts about , years.

Over time, gravity and pressure increase, forcing the protostar to collapse down. This phase occurs at the end of the protostar phase when the gravitational pressure holding the star together is the source of all its energy. T Tauri stars can have large areas of sunspot coverage, and have intense X-ray flares and extremely powerful stellar winds.

Stars will remain in the T Tauri stage for about million years. Main Sequence stars are young stars. They are powered by the fusion of hydrogen H into helium He in their cores, a process that requires temperatures of more than 10 million Kelvin.

Around 90 percent of the stars in the Universe are main-sequence stars, including our sun. A star in the main sequence is in a state of hydrostatic equilibrium. Gravity is pulling the star inward, and the light pressure from all the fusion reactions in the star are pushing outward. The inward and outward forces balance one another out, and the star maintains a spherical shape. Stars in the main sequence will have a size that depends on their mass, which defines the amount of gravity pulling them inward.

Blue stars are typically hot, O-type stars that are commonly found in active star-forming regions, particularly in the arms of spiral galaxies, where their light illuminates surrounding dust and gas clouds making these areas typically appear blue.

Blue stars are also often found in complex multi-star systems, where their evolution is much more difficult to predict due to the phenomenon of mass transfer between stars, as well as the possibility of different stars in the system ending their lives as supernovas at different times.

Blue stars are mainly characterized by the strong Helium-II absorption lines in their spectra, and the hydrogen and neutral helium lines in their spectra that are markedly weaker than in B-type stars. Because blue stars are so hot and massive, they have relatively short lives that end in violent supernova events, ultimately resulting in the creation of either black holes or neutron stars. Red dwarf stars are the most common kind of stars in the Universe. This cooler state makes them appear faint.

They have another advantage. Red dwarf stars are able to keep the hydrogen fuel mixing into their core, and so they can conserve their fuel for much longer than other stars. Astronomers estimate that some red dwarf stars will burn for up to 10 trillion years. The smallest red dwarfs are 0.

A yellow dwarf is a star belonging to the main sequence of spectral type G and weighing between 0. Our Sun is an example of a G-type star, but it is, in fact, white since all the colors it emits are blended together. The Sun is an example of a G-type main-sequence star yellow dwarf. Typical G-type stars have between 0. Like the Sun, all G-type stars convert hydrogen into helium in their cores, and will evolve into red giants as their supply of hydrogen fuel is depleted.

Orange dwarf stars are K-type stars on the main sequence that in terms of size, fall between red M-type main-sequence stars and yellow G-type main-sequence stars. K-type stars are of particular interest in the search for extraterrestrial life, since they emit markedly less UV radiation that damages or destroys DNA than G-type stars on the one hand, and they remain stable on the main sequence for up to about 30 billion years, as compared to about 10 billion years for the Sun.

Moreover, K-type stars are about four times as common as G-type stars, making the search for exoplanets a lot easier. The largest stars in the Universe are supergiant stars.

Giants and supergiants form when a star runs out of hydrogen and begins burning helium. Low and medium-mass stars then evolve into red giants.