We have seen how a star’s color or peak wavelength indicates its characteristic temperature near the stellar surface. But what about the temperature in the star’s deep interior? Intuitively, we expect this to be much higher than at the surface, but under what conditions does it become hot enough to allow for nuclear fusion to power the star’s luminosity? And how does it scale quantitatively with the overall stellar properties, such as mass, radius, and luminosity? To answer these questions, we identify two distinct considerations.
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