What does the mass of a star determine?

Answer 1

Good question. Mass is one of those things that is basic and is determined by comparison to a reference kilogram standard. The maintenance of this standard is incredibly difficult, and recently attempts have been made to update the standard to a countable number of silicon atoms or a comparison to a known force.

Answer 2

For main sequence stars.

The mass of a star will determines how quickly it burns its hydrogen fuel.

How fast it burns it fuel determines how hot it gets.

How hot a star is determines its spectral colour.

Obtaining the spectrum of a star through clever optical telescopes can tell us the stars peak output colour and therefore its temperature, therefore the star's mass by backwards interpolation.

Answer 3

For most you can't ...

but some stars are binary - two stars close together, that rotate around each other.

From the spacing and the velocity their masses can be calculated.

After a large number of these, they found a correlation with spectral type.

Answer 4

The most reliable way to measure that is by observing the effect on other objects. For example, if two stars orbit one another - a rather common situation - and the distance to the pair is known, then there is a relationship between the distance between the stars, the rotational period, and the masses.

Answer 5

The mass of any object can be determined by multiplying the volume of the object by the density of the object

Answer 6

How long a star lives depends on its mass.

Answer 7

a star's position can be determined by using a telescope but you have to coordinate all the exact points like maybe a star is 93,000 km away from mars, and 650,000 km away from earth.

Answer 8

"Directly" only if they have companion stars (close binaries). All others by assumption that equal masses have equal characteristics.