Home > Astrophysics > Luminosity, Effective Temperature, Flux and Magnitudes

What makes dwarf stars so bright?

Answer 1

They are really, really hot.

To start, the dwarf stars you are talking about are only white dwarfs, which are extremely hot stars that are left over after a star goes nova. A white dwarf star's surface temperature is about ten times higher than it was before the star went nova.

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Answer 2

Anna Armstrong

Because of their small size and high surface temperature, dwarf stars have a high luminosity-to-surface area ratio. Nuclear fusion in their cores is the primary source of their brightness; it releases energy in the form of heat and light when hydrogen is converted into helium.

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Answer from HIX Tutor

When evaluating a one-sided limit, you need to be careful when a quantity is approaching zero since its sign is different depending on which way it is approaching zero from. Let us look at some examples.