What do stars look like up close?
Probably very much like the Sun with sunspots that come in cycles...or are
permanent...with surfaces that seem to boil and 'convect' like hot cereal
on a stove top. They glow with colors that tell you how hot the gases are..red
means temperatures of a few thousand degrees...orange means 3000 to 4000
degrees, yellow means 5000 - 7000 degrees and so on.
The image above is of the star Betelgeuse which was resolved by the Hubble Space Telescope and photographed. It has an irregular shape, probably because of a bright active region just below the center of the star's facing surface, or from a bright prominence in the inner corona of the star.
Copyright 1997 Dr. Sten Odenwald
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