The sky is full of beautiful stars. We look up at night and see their sparkling, bringing comfort and peace to us. Stars are part of the mysterious solar system we live on.
Let’s look at some star facts, like how much a star weighs, to try and educate ourselves a little more about them.
How Much Does a Star Weigh?
At first, you have to understand that the weight of a star is calculated by solar mass. A solar group is equal to about 4.385e+30 pounds.
The sun is considered to be a star of average size. 1% of the remaining stars in the sky are so massive they make the sun look like a little speck in comparison.
The largest star of the record is R136a1 and it weighs more than 265 solar masses. 265 x 4.385e+30 = 1.162e+33.
White Dwarf Stars
White Dwarf stars are the stellar core of a star left exposed when a star has burned out and been pulled by a gravitational force until it collapses.
As stars age and get close to dying, the hydrogen they contain is converted to helium. The helium sinks into the star and settles at the core. The star’s temperature rises because of the helium presence, and it begins to expand the outer portion of the star. As they swell, they are called red giants.
A White Dwarf section equivalent to one teaspoon would weigh about 15 tons.
Neutron Stars
When a supernova collapses, the remnants left are neutron stars. Neutron stars are the size of a small city.
A Neutron Star section equivalent to one teaspoon weighs about 4 billion tons.
What Causes a Star to Be Born?
A star is formed in nebulae clouds. The clouds are filled with interstellar gas and some dust. The cloud gets bumped into, or is rocked by an explosion, and starts to rotate in a spinning motion. Clumps of dust and gas form in the cloud, and as the clusters grow, they also grow hotter.
When the temperature reaches 10 million degrees Celsius, nuclear fusion occurs. That atomic fusion is the birth of a star.
One of these clouds can take millions of years to create a nursery of little star babies.
What are the most famous stars?
- Our sun
- a Centauri System
- a Canis Majoris
- UY Scuti
- R136a1
- Lyrae
- an Orionis
- a Scorpii
- B Orionis
Did You Know?
- Every star you can see in the night sky is more significant than our sun.
- People with excellent eyesight can see between 2000 and 2500 stars simultaneously.
- When you see a star that appears blue, it is hotter than a star that seems to have a red hue.
- You can see about 19,000,000,000,000,000 miles on a clear night. That is 19 quadrillion miles.
- If you are looking at the stars without a telescope, there are only 9,096 stars that you can see.
- The astronomers believe there could be as many as one trillion stars in the Milky Way Galaxy.
- The more significant the star mass, the shorter the lifespan it will have.
- The brightest star of Orion is Rigel. Rigel is the 7th brightest star in the sky.
- Antares is a red supergiant 10,000 times brighter than our sun.
- There has never been, and will not be, a picture that shows the entire Milky Way at one time.
- Most stars are somewhere between 1 and 10 billion years old.
- The Milky Way is 13.2 billion years old.
- The dimmest star of the 50 most prominent stars is 1.5 times brighter than our sun.
- Our sun is a green star.
- When you look at the light of a star in the night sky, you are looking into the past. The light from a star takes millions of years to reach our range of vision.
- If you could float around space, you would discover that most stars are far apart.
- Stars do not twinkle. The turbulence in the atmosphere gives you this impression.
- The sun should continue its hydrogen-burning stage for another five billion years, give or take a few. After that, it will burn the helium it has been converting the hydrogen into and create a planetary nebula that will shrink to become a white dwarf.
- The heaviest thing in the universe is the black hole in the galaxy NGC 4889. The mass of this black hole is 21 billion times greater than the mass of our sun. It is located about 300 million light years away from earth.
FAQs
What Happens When A Star Dies?
The star’s core collapses under the force of gravity and leaves behind an exotic star.
What Is The Main Sequence Star?
The main sequence is the stage of life the star is currently in. Most stars in the galaxy, including the sun, are main sequence stars.
What Are All Stars Not The Same Color?
The star’s proximity to the earth makes a difference in the color we perceive them to be.