How do stars make X-rays?
There a a couple of ways that stars make X-rays. You may know that all objects (that are not at a temperature of absolute zero) emit radiation. The frequency of this emitted radiation depends on the temperature of the object. Most things on earth are between 0 and 200 degrees F and emit radiation in the infrared (which is why you can “see” people in the dark with an infrared camera — people often say that infrared cameras “see heat” but this is not true, they are simply tuned to see the frequency of light given off by object at around body temperature and your eye is not). So, what happens if you continue to heat up an object? First it will get hot enough to glow with a frequency of light that your eye can see; it becomes red hot. Keep getting it hotter and it will glow yellow and then white. If you get matter really, really hot it will glow in X-rays! So, by looking at the sky with an X-ray telescope we are looking for matter that has gotten super hot by some means, much hotter than
