On a physical theory of stellar spectra

Abstract

The present paper embodies an attempt towards a physical explanation of the ordered gradation in the spectra of stars—a subject in which pioneering work was done by the late Sir Norman Lockyer, but which was worked up with systematic thoroughness at the Harvard College Observatory, under the lead of the late Prof. E. C. Pickering and Miss A. J. Cannon. During this interval the spectra of more than 100,000 stars have been photographed, classified, and published with full details in the Henry Draper Memorial Catalogue. The most noteworthy facts which have been brought to light from these monumental studies have thus been summarised by H. N. Russell. "The spectra of the stars show remarkably few radical differences in type. More than 99 per cent. of them fall into one or the other of the six great groups which during the classic work of the Harvard College Observatory were recognised as of fundamental importance, and received as designations, by the process of the survival of the fittest, the rather arbitrary letters B, A, F, G, K, M. That there should be so few types is noteworthy, but much more remarkable is the fact that they form a continuous series. Every degree of gradation between the typical spectra denoted by B and A may be found in different stars, and the same is true to the end of the series, a fact recognised in the familiar decimal classification, in which B5A, for example, denotes a spectrum half-way between the typical examples B and A. The series is not merely continuous, it is linear. There exists slight difference between the spectra of different stars of the same spectral class, such as Ao, but these relate to minor details. Almost all the stars of the small outstanding minority fall into three other classes (or rather four), denoted by the letters P, O, N, R. Of these, O undoubtedly precedes B at the head of the series, while R and N, which grade one into the other, come probably at its other end, though in this case the transition stages are not clearly worked out.”

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