Persistent features of astronomical bodies

[MrG99]

TL;DR

Curious if there are measurable qualities of a star which remain constant during its lifetime.

Hi there! I was curious if some stars, or any other large astronomical bodies, have some kind of signature which would remain constant/identifiable between phases of their lifetime (e.g., something that would identify star 'A' whether it was a low mass star or a red giant, or later on in a white dwarf phase).

 

[anorlunda]

How about position in the sky as a starting clue?

It sounds like a question for a SF story. Is that the case?

 

[stefan r]

The metals. Particularly the ratios between the r-process metals.

 

[phyzguy]

As @stefan r said, there is a technique called chemical tagging, which alllows accurate measurements of the abundance of many elements in the star. Ideally, this gives each star a unique "fingerprint".