Talk:Hertzsprung-Russell diagram

discussion

Wow, don't use your math for a couple of decades, and it gets rusty.

[https://citizendium.org/wiki/index.php?title=Hertzsprung-Russell_diagram&diff=866863&oldid=866759 Good catch] Mark Widmer the relationship between mass and luminosity is not the inverse cube.

It is complicated. The age of the star affects the luminosity. As I understand it, while on the main sequence, as the Helium core grows larger, the rate at which fusion takes place slowly increases, as it mainly takes place at the boundary between the Hydrogen layer and the Helium core.

I never studied astronomy, but I did read a lot about it, mainly decades ago. It was my understanding that larger stars had to fuse more intensely, as it was the energy of that fusion that countered the gravitational pressure that would otherwise shrink them to the size of a white dwarf. The larger stars had a more massive Hydrogen outer layer, so required more energy to resist that gravitational pressure. It is not linear. It was my understanding that a star twice as massive as Sol, our sun, like Sirius, fuses its Hydrogen roughly eight times as fast.

If I got that right how would you suggest rephrasing that passage?

Cheers! George Swan (talk) 21:34, 13 April 2022 (CDT)