A star's light

Siblings and Star Classes

      Time was difficult to measure without a system. With no planets to gauge time by and with only their orbit around the galaxies center as a reference, Sol found themselves relying on Solaris's memories of their system to grasp the passage of time. The bigger star had said something about measuring time in "cycles" but they didn't quite understand what that meant. Nevertheless it couldn't have been long before Sol found themselves wandering the depths of their stellar nursery, curious about what the swirling clouds hid from their sight.

As they aimlessly navigated the vast confines of their nursery they caught sight of a dim light coming from their left. Idly they twirled their hair around their fingers. Solaris had told them they had a habit of doing that when they were thinking. Well, they were curious and they had nothing better to do. Might as well check it out. They floated their way forward, playfully skirting around imaginary obstacles until they found the source of the light. A big clump of gas and dust floated in the space in front of them. It was rapidly spinning and two hot jets of matter were being ejected from its poles. The whole thing but especially the jets emitted beautiful bright orange light.

They took in the glowing ball as a smile crept across their face. Vaguely they recognized that this thing could be a sibling for them even though they weren't sure how. They spun on their feet and sped back to Solaris, exited to share the news. They barreled into the older star enthusiastic chatter spilling from their lips. "Solaris! There's a big, glowing clump of dust and gas! I'm getting a sibling!" The bigger star flared brightly in surprise at being slammed into. Oh universe, that's fantastic but a bit of warning before tackling me like that." Sol blinked, carefully detangling themselves from the older star's hair. "Sorry but come on! You gotta see it!" They didn't wait for a reply before speeding off again, trusting their white glow to guide the crimson star.

A Quick Look back revealed that Solaris seemed hesitant to enter the nursery. The elder star's eyes darted around as they carefully moved each cloud of material aside with their gravity before proceeding. Sol noted that and slowed their pace to one the older star could match. "This way. We're almost there!" They were practically vibrating with excitement and their glow could be seen for light years. "Come on, hurry up!" "I'm coming!" Sol huffed in exasperation but waited for the other star to arrive before moving on. In moments they had arrived at their destination and Sol pointed out the glowing ball.

"See it's almost half my size! I'm sure it will ignite into a star eventually." Solaris studied the clump from a safe distance. "You're right. It's a promising looking protostar. It probably will ignite and soon by the look of it." Sol tilted their head in confusion. "What's a protostar?" Solaris huffed. "Proto means "first" as in relating to a predecessor. So a protostar is a star that hasn't ignited yet and is still forming. This one looks almost ready to begin element fusion and ignite." Sol beamed in happiness, focusing on the last sentence. "I'm going to meet them soon? That's amazing. I wonder what they'll be like." They turned to face Solaris. "What color are they going to be?" Solaris studied the protostar before answering. "Red and probably a little less than half your mass." The elder star seemed to decide something as they continued talking. "This seems like an excellent time to discuss star classifications." Solaris scooped them up before they could protest and retreated to their usual position on the edge of the nursery.

"Stars are classified according to their mass, radius length, color, hydrogen lines, core temperature during their main sequence, and luminosity or brightness. We'll start at the bottom classes and work our way up ok Sol?" Sol didn't get a chance to respond before the older star continued speaking. Rude. "At the bottom there are M-class stars. M-class stars have the lowest temperatures of any star class and are orangish red or light orangish red in color. They're the dimmest stars with less than 8% of your luminosity and have the weakest hydrogen lines of any star class. M-class stars in their sequence are 8%-45% of your mass and their radii are 70% of yours. They are the most common type class of star being 76% of main sequence stars. I'm pretty sure your sibling will be an M-class star."