/ / Amazing celestial bodies: incredible giants and stars that are smaller than the sun

Amazing heavenly bodies: incredible giants and stars that are smaller in size than the Sun

Уже на заре существования человечества древние people turned their eyes to the night sky. Astronomers of the first civilizations tried to count the stars, which then seemed to them to be eternally fixed points of the firmament. Over time, developing natural science, ideas about the world and astronomy. However, interest in celestial bodies only increased.

Amazing stars

stars that are smaller than the sun

In the New Age it was discovered that all thesestars that are smaller than or larger than the Sun are bodies similar to our star. But even after centuries of research, they still did not reveal all their secrets to humanity. In modern astronomy and astrophysics, sensational discoveries are literally made every few years. They suddenly ask scientists surprising riddles or even change our ideas about the nature of things. Stars that are smaller than the Sun suddenly shine thousands of times brighter than it, for thousands of years the observed points on the firmament turn out to be a whole system of several luminaries, and so on. This bundle of stars is the Alpha Centauri system nearest to us, where three incandescent bodies rotate around a common center of mass.

stars that are smaller than the sun

The largest star of this system is Centaurus Asomewhat larger than our own luminary, the other two stars smaller in size than the Sun. In the text below, we take a closer look at some of these amazing objects in our universe.

Stars that are larger than the Sun

In our galaxy there are many such bodies:giant stars, subgiants, supergiants, hypergiants. For example, the masses of blue supergiants can exceed the solar one by 10–20 times. This means that they can be hundreds of times larger than our luminary and shine thousands of times brighter. Their blue color indicates monstrous temperatures. Such, for example, is the star Riegel - the brightest body in the constellation of Orion. But even these dimensions and luminosities pale in comparison with really gigantic objects. The largest stars of our universe are the so-called hypergiants. A typical representative of this class will be several times more massive than even the giant Riegel, and 200-250 times more massive than our Sun. However, such objects are quite rare in the universe. Interestingly, their lifespan is quite small by stellar standards. They shine incredibly brightly, sometimes overshadowing whole galaxies, but quickly consume their fuel materials.

stars smaller than the sun

Stars that are smaller than the Sun

Longer live small stars that are economical andslowly exhaust their potential. Stars that are smaller than the Sun are usually dimmer. This breed includes numerous dwarfs: orange, red, brown, white. By the way, our star is also a yellow dwarf. Epsilon star in the constellation Eridanus also belongs to the class of yellow dwarfs, but its mass is slightly less than the sun - 85%, and the luminosity is only 28% compared to the brightness of our star. The so-called brown dwarfs have amazing properties. Their mass, as a rule, is from 1 to 7% of the solar mass. Thus, in this respect, they even approach planets like our Jupiter. Actually, brown dwarfs and can not be called full luminaries. Astrophysicists often characterize them as failed stars. Of course, their luminosity and temperature are also hundreds of times less than solar. Today, the coldest brown dwarfs known to science have a surface temperature of only 25 degrees C. Interestingly, some stars that are smaller than the Sun can have a greater mass at the same time. We are talking about the so-called neutron stars. They are the end products of the evolution of stars. What remains of the star after a supernova explosion. The radius of the pulsars (as they are also called otherwise) is usually compressed to 10–20 kilometers in diameter. An insignificant small distance, comparable to a not the largest asteroid. But at the same time, neutron stars are incredibly condensed bodies with a mass equal to 1.5 solar. Just a handful of the substance taken from the body of such an incredible plane will weigh thousands of tons.