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Star Smaller Than Some Planets Found
Abhishek writes "Astronomers have found the tiniest full-fledged star known, an object just 16 percent bigger than Jupiter. It is smaller than some known planets that orbit other stars.
The star is a companion to a Sun-like star toward the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. It was found and measured by observing changes in the light output of the system when the smaller star passes in front of the larger star from our vantagepoint. This would give a better idea of brown dwarfs or failed stars. The star has been named OGLE-TR-122b. This discovery also marks the possibility of stars that look strikingly like planets."
Been a long time since I was I was into nuclear phys, but how can it maintain that density with such (relatively) small mass? The process of fusion, which tends to expand a star, equally balances gravity which tends to contract a star. Seems to me a normal star would expand due to fusion.
Basically, it doesn't make sense that it can maintain being 1/10 the mass of the sun and 50x as dense. This means its fusion output must be tiny (little to balance gravity), but why? Is it mainly made of non-hydrogen mass? They should be able to tell the elemental composition from the spectrum. And how could it have such little fusion and not be a brown dwarf?
Wish this press release had some science in it.
Planet X is also said to be a small non-ignited brown dwarf circling our sun every 3600 years. What the article describes is quite similar to that. Let the speculation begin! prepare your tinfoil hats!
if jupiter had ignited into a star, what would it look like from earth? would it be brighter than the light that bounces off the moon?
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
OK, you saved your face with semantics, but what you said was very misleading.
;-)
What?! No it wasn't misleading. Neutron stars cannot have nuclear reactions. Period. If one happens to be in a mass-transfer binary, the infalling material will obviously burn, but that's *not* the NS, it's the infalling material!
Misleading? Sure, the same way saying "Dogs can't fly" is misleading, because you saw one on an airplane once. Sheesh.
Out of curiosity, what would you say if someone asks you whether nuclear fusion takes place in a neutron star? Would you really say "yes it does"? Now *that's* misleading...
I'm about to get my PhD in astrophysics, so hmmmmph.
Congratulations! See you at the AAS sometime...
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
This post goes to all you scientist out there. First question, what's to keep Jupiter from being a star it self?
And second, (this is a serious question so please don't mod me) but what would happen if some one blew up a nuclear bomb in Jupiter's atmosphere? Would it turn into a star or would it just burn out? And how would doing so affect Earth?
I would think if Jupiter where to turn into a star that it's gravity would increase and effect the entire solar system on a gravitational level.
What would happen to it's moons? Would the increase gravity suck the moons into the planet or would they stay in there old orbit? And what about Titan, the extra heat from the new lit star would heat up the moon and turn all those liquids into gases.
This would be an interesting scientific experiment to try. I just want to know what would be the potential risk for us.