Talk:Main sequence

message: The chart here does not have the same values as the chart here.  Both are part of Wikipedia.
Can somebody fix this?
JW Bjerk (talk) 02:50, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: One of the charts gives ranges across each of the major classes; the other gives discrete values for specific spectral classes. Thus they are not incompatible and do not need to be fixed, at least as far as I can tell. Thanks.—RJH (talk) 15:35, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  It would be best to update all the tables of mass, class, and temperature to reflect the most recent classification: http://www.pas.rochester.edu/~emamajek/EEM_dwarf_UBVIJHK_colors_Teff.txt . THere have been major changes in spectral classifications, especially in M and OB stars. 2601:441:4180:2440:3D40:64B1:E56A:1F9 (talk) 19:27, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Discrepancy between Mass and Star Class

message: I'm not sure if anybody watching this has an account on the Simple English Wikipedia, but the description there seems a little messed up. In particular, the CNO cycle occurs with higher mass stars, rather than lower mass stars. There are a few other minor inconsistencies as well. Thank you. Regards, RJH (talk) 20:01, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Read it again, more carefully this time.  And then think about not piling into 9-year-old comments that aren't even about this article.  Lithopsian (talk) 09:55, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Simple english 

message: What other types of stars are there other than main-sequence? What type is our sun? I think these points should be address in the introductory part of the article. 188.169.229.30 (talk) 17:09, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I added a sentence for the first paragraph. Hopefully it helps. 2601:441:4180:2440:3D40:64B1:E56A:1F9 (talk) 23:30, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some context for the layman 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Referring to white dwarfs, the article states: "These represent the final evolutionary stage of many main-sequence stars."  It would more clearly represent the source if it stated: "These are an evolutionary stage many stars reach long after leaving the main-sequence."  - Fartherred (talk) 16:36, 29 June 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: [DoctorJoeE], you should not have reverted my comment on this talk page.  If you disagree, state your disagreement.  Fartherred (talk) 18:49, 29 June 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: DoctorJoeE disclaims reverting my talk page entry earlier, even though his name appears in the history of this page as reverting.  Perhaps his account or a Wikipedia server was hacked.  - Fartherred (talk) 21:42, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

text: There is some lack of perfection in the article, but I have given up on trying to make an actual improvement.  Considering the level of my expertise, it is too difficult.  - Fartherred (talk) 23:17, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Describing white dwarfs 

message: The equation for main-sequence lifespan does not give results that match the numbers I'm seeing in other sources, such as http://www.atnf.csiro.au/outreach/education/senior/astrophysics/stellarevolution_mainsequence.html. Does that equation only apply to a specific range of stellar masses, or are the above website and/or the book that supplied that equation out of date? Or am I just not understanding the math? I can say that the equation does not match the results of this study for stars <0.25 solar masses: http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1086/304125/pdf;jsessionid=EA018F69CE41C137D0722C4B2B961C88.c3.iopscience.cld.iop.org 2601:441:4180:2440:3D40:64B1:E56A:1F9 (talk) 19:21, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lifetime 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Would someone look at the "Further reading" section? 23 entries are not considered a reasonable number and the section is subject to various "External links" guidelines. Otr500 (talk) 15:31, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Further reading 

message: Seriously, I've known one of the stars in the Beta Centauri system to be a "blue dwarf" - when I mean "dwarf", I mean main sequence star.
But why are O and B (early)-type main sequence stars never referred to as "blue dwarfs"? They are not as luminous as even their giant and supergiant counterparts, and not all of the "blue dwarfs" expected to form when red dwarfs exhaust their hydrogen supply are expected to be blue, but rather have temperatures just as hot as the Sun (just like the blue loop). The subdwarf O stars and subdwarf B stars are already almost as large as the Sun, but not even as luminous.
105.98.210.26 (talk) 23:42, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: The simple answer is that they are called blue dwarfs sometimes.  Look, blue dwarf even says so.  However, it is not that common and I prefer to avoid it, partly because there are other things called blue dwarfs and partly because a blue dwarf can be a very massive and luminous star by comparison with just about everything else.  I think the term was more popular in the past, but a search of recent academic publications shows almost every reference to "blue dwarf" being to galaxies.  Lithopsian (talk) 16:43, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why are blue main-sequence stars never called [[blue dwarf (red-dwarf stage)|blue dwarf]]s? 

message: I was looking for the history of the idea that nuclear fusion was the source of stellar energy. As I understand it, Payne-Gaposchkin first showed that stars are mainly hydrogen and helium. But I don't know who and when suggested that hydrogen fusion would account for stellar energy. Before P-G, stellar energy was a mystery. But I cannot find any discussion in Wikipedia for this major discovery, building on P-G's surprising result about hydrogen.  How did someone come to realize hydrogen fusion. And, btw, it would be interesting to hear the prior history, how chemistry - burning - was discounted as a source, and how gravitational collapse was suggested. Is there any where in Wikipedia where this history is discussed?  TomS TDotO (talk) 23:48, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: See the article on Hans Bethe for a summary. It could be useful to add a few sentences or a very brief paragraph to the History section of the Main Sequence article to describe Bethe's role in solving this problem, although this article is not the place for a very detailed account. Aldebarium (talk) 01:54, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

text: See Stellar nucleosynthesis and specifically the history section.  The basics of what you were looking for seem to be there.  Perhaps it could be linked more clearly from other articles such as this one, star, and stellar evolution.  Lithopsian (talk) 16:17, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you. That article gives the sort of information that I was looking for. It seems to say that the idea of hydrogen fusion was first suggested by Eddington in 1920. I am confused, however, by the article on Payne-Gasposckin, which says that her proposal in 1925 that stars are mostly hydrogen and helium was considered unacceptable. I don't claim to know anything, so I can't offer anything positive. I'll just have to let it pass. TomS TDotO (talk) 18:21, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Eddington's idea was really quite vague, just a suggestion that fusion of hydrogen was a sufficient power source for stars.  We pick it out now because it happened to be right, but lots of people at the time were casting about for solutions to the problem that gravitational contraction just wasn't sufficient to power stars. Similarly, Payne-Gaposchkin's thesis happened to be right, but it certainly wasn't accepted immediately.  It did catch on following essentially the same results published by another astronomer in 1929, then the exact CNO cycle was determined in 1938, followed by the B2FH paper in 1957.  Sometimes little soundbites get taken out of the whole sequence without the full context.  No doubt many of these articles could be improved, but history isn't really my strong suit.  Lithopsian (talk) 18:49, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. That makes sense. There was a lot going on in the 1920s. So much that we take for granted today as basic astronomy - what kids learn in grade school. TomS TDotO (talk) 21:21, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  The discovery of fusion as the source of stellar energy 

message: the article says a star remains at the same position on the sequence until hydrogen is depleted, but doesn't clearly say wherher it then moves off the MS, or up the MS. It also says that it gradually increases in temperature and brightness, implying it moves up not off the sequence. 47.17.56.98 (talk) 20:11, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Contradiction? 

message: Can someone explain why 2MASS J0523-1403 is a spectral standard for L1-type main sequence stars? Cause it is actually an L2.5 star, as it says in the Wikipedia article about the star and in most sources. And it has a mass of 0.06 solar masses, not 0.07. The temperature is 2074 K, not 2200 K. It's the same for many of the other "spectral standards" in the table, for example, the B0 star has a too-low mass and a too-high luminosity, the B5 star is practically a subgiant, and the F0 star has a too-low mass and too-low temperature! All of the stars in EZ Aquarii are more M7 than M5! Please fix the table! Jtadesse (talk) 17:28, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spectral classes