Evolution, Page 30: [Previous Page] [Next Page] [Class Home Page] Textbook pages 321 - 344

A Census of the Stars

What is a common star?? Is the Sun common or is it smaller than the average star?




If we make a graph showing the Absolute Magnitude (this means, its been corrected for distance) of the BRIGHTEST stars in the sky from Earth, we find that they are all intrinsically VERY bright. The SUN has an AbsMag of +4, so EVERY star but one is BRIGHTER than the Sun. But are such bright stars really common?













How about if we define the most common star to be the most abundant we find around the Sun (and we'll assume the rest of the galaxy is like the Solar Neighborhood).




Here we show a histogram displaying the intrinsic luminosity (distance corrected again!) of the nearest stars to the Sun. Few, if any, are even as bright as our Sun! (having L_sun = 1). Very LOW luminosity, SMALL (low mass) M Dwarf stars are by far the most common star in the galaxy! The little guys win as the most common stars!