The temperature of a black body that radiates the same total energy per unit area as a given object, such as a star. It is the most useful measure of a star’s surface temperature. The effective temperature of the Sun, for example, is 5800 K. However, in other circumstances it may be misleading, such as for a planetary nebula which may have a kinetic temperature (obtained from the mean energies of the particles) of 10 000 K, but an effective temperature of only 50 K because of the low density of particles. See also Colour Temperature.