A Whole New Dimension... (Ejnar Hertzsprung)
Ejnar Hertzsprung REVOLUTIONIZED stellar classification by adding a new array of star characteristics to his famous HR diagram and discovering several variable stars!!!
Summary:
Hertzsprung was a Danish astronomer who was born in 1873 and studied chemical engineering as well as photochemistry in college. This gave him a good spectroscopical foundation for when he leant toward studying astronomy, which was influenced by his dad being an amateur astronomer.
At the time Hertzsprung began studying astronomy, Annie Jump Cannon and Antonia C. Maury has created two spectral classification systems. Hertzsprung borrowed from Maury’s to identify strong absorption lines in luminous stars, and went on to distinguish between giant and dwarf stars.
Hertzsprung along the way also identified the main sequence which would be a key feature of his diagram. He identified the relation between the radiation of a star and its color using stars in open clusters, which were equidistant and had similar colors as well as similar magnitude. And all of this was done without him drawing the diagram that we know of today, simply through description.
In this way, the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram became a revolutionary piece of technology in the spectral classification of stars and aided the discovery of many variable stars, which Hertzsprung did himself for part of his life. The diagram moved beyond the simple classification of stars based on absorption lines and added multiple new dimensions to it like color, temperature, and luminosity.
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