THE FAR-INFRARED COLORS OF CARBON STARS REVISITED

In view of recent developments in the theory of carbon star evolution it has become necessary to re-examine the source of the excess 100 mu m flux associated with carbon stars. We demonstrate that the observed far infrared colors of carbon stars are not due to cirrus contaminatio n and that a geometrically thin detached shell provides insufficient f ar-IR flux to match the observations. We also show that more recent mo dels are consistent with a geometrically thick detached shell.