Some star can be so small that we can cath it in our hand is it true?

Question

i am meghana (mini) after you see this question send me mail about this question so i can make question my id is [e-mail]

Answer 1

Wouldn't it just burn a hole right through your hand?

Answer 2

To be a star, an object needs to be at least 25,000 times more massive than Earth.  That is the minimum mass for gravity to compress matter sufficiently, at the centre, to start the fusion reaction.

Without the fusion reaction, the object is not called a star.

Answer 3

no you cannot catch it with our bare hands.....i know you already know that sun is also a star which is the nearest star in our solar system.

Answer 4

No, nuclear fusion would not be able to occur.

Answer 5

Sun is also a star. Can you catch it with your hands?

Answer 6

( I realize that you refer only to size and not actually holding it in the hand, of course. <grin>)

Most white dwarfs are about the size of the Earth but contain about half the Sun's mass. Red dwarfs can be smaller. Neutron stars are thought to be around 20 km. in diameter, which is still a far-cry from hand-size.

I have read that there are brown dwarfs that are physically about the size of a large house, but at the moment I am still trying to remember where I saw that. They would be, of course, extremely dense. Also there is question if a brown dwarf could even be considered a star in the normal sense.  They are considered 'sub-stellar' masses. A brown dwarf over 13 Jupiter masses can still support deuterium fusion, and around 65+ Jupiter masses can support lithium fusion.  Neither of these qualifies it as a star in the classic sense.

I am certain that a star could never be small enough to fit in one's hand, inasmuch as I am certain that there would not be enough mass for sustained fusion.  It would only be possible as long as the mass of the star exceeds 75 to 80 Jupiter-masses, which is thought to be the smallest mass which could still carry on hydrogen/helium fusion and be considered a star.

The limit of physical size relates to how tightly matter can be packed together before it collapses upon itself and becomes a black hole (at which point it would no longer be a star).  I do not believe it is possible that a star with at least the required 75+ Jupiter-masses could be compacted to hand-size without black-hole collapse.

The smallest stars, known as red dwarfs, may contain as little as 10% the mass of the Sun and emit as little as 0.0001% as much energy, with surface temperatures between 3000-4000°K. Red dwarfs are by far the most numerous stars (at least in this region that we can see) and have lifespans of tens of billions of years. Except for Sol, the closest star to the Earth, Proxima Centauri, is a red dwarf (M5) and there are over a dozen red dwarfs within a dozen light years of Earth.

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For the fellows stating that the sun is a star.  What is your point? Yes, it is, (G2) but stars come in a variety of sizes colors, masses and energy levels... (Do you know what O-B-A-F-G-K-M stands for? <g>)

On the opposite end of the spectrum, look at one like Betelgeuse (650 solar diameters) or Antares (700 solar diameters), which are so large, they could undergo a change, begin to collapse, the core temperature will rise, start to burn helium and explode into a super-nova.  This could happen at any time (in the next million years). Even more likely than them, look at one of the largest stars known, VY Canis Majoris, which is ~three times the diameter of Betelgeuse.

Sometimes they collapse to a white dwarf instead of going nova.  It is thought by many that Sirius B was a red giant that collapsed to a white dwarf.  Many ancient works from Greece and Rome record Sirius as a bright red star, whereas the brighter star, we call Sirius A today, is blue.  It is felt that somewhere in between Sirius B was a red giant that collapsed into a white dwarf.

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Referring to the statement about upper mass limit (below) there seems to be some disagreement within the scientific community.  In a paper by M.S.Oey & C.J.Clarke [23-Dec-2004 -the Astrophysical Journal Letters] they indicated an upper mass limit for stars being in the range 120-200 solar masses, as opposed to Massey & Hunter (1998), who found that the upper limit was theoretically infinite.  Oey & Clarke seem to have based their theory upon a number of stars already observed. In their words: "current observations indeed show the existence of an upper-mass limit around m(up)~120−200M⊙."

Elmegreen(2000) quantitatively demonstrates that, in the absence of an upper-mass cutoff stellar masses should be observed up to 40,000M⊙

Therefore one should say that the 120-200 figure {150 being within that range} is based on what has been seen, (in other words an observed 'practical' limit) whereas the higher figures are based on quantitative theoretical predictions.

What is the real answer?  I guess it is yet to be seen...

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Addition: For the fellow that said without the fusion reaction the object is not a star, you are close, but you may have worded that incorrectly.  A brown dwarf can have fusion going on yet it is still not considered a star. It may have lithium fusion or deuterium fusion occuring and give off light and energy, but it is still considered a sub-stellar mass.

Answer 7

no

Answer 8

Its a big NO! We can't handle the stars with our bare hands...

Although there are some stars smaller than the sun, these stars are still very big because still, it is as large as our planet....

Answer 9

maybe we can but i think that when a star is dead it will become a black hole...............

Answer 10

There seem to be a lot of misconceptions here.  A brown dwarf is an agglomeration of mass that never quite made it to be a star with all that entails.  It follows from this that there is a minimum size/mass that a star can be.  Currently, this is believed to be about 8.3% the mass of our sun, or roughly 87 times that of Jupiter.  That doesn't mean it will be 87 times the size of Jupiter, as gravity will have drawn the mass into a concentrated ball.  However, it will be much larger than the Earth.  Incidentally, we believe that at the present age of the Universe, the maximum mass for a star is about 150 times that of the Sun, though in the early Universe, there may have been stars with 300 times the mass of our Sun.

Answer 11

no it's not true because stars are suns and in galaxy's there is planets.so if that was true all of those galaxies would fall out of gravity.they're different suns but bigger.our sun is actually smaller than usual.i hope i hleped.

Answer 12

catch a falling star and put it in your pocket never let it go away

a song composed by Lee Pockriss and Paul Vance

obviasly they wrote it so it must be true

no you can not place a star in your hand.

they are to big (nutron stars are still to big)

they are to hot

and the radiation would kill you

did I mention the magnetic field that would be bad as well

however if you are refering to a falling star then that is commen name for a metorite falling through the atmosphere

small metorites can be held in your hand

  I would recemend against catching "falling stars" though

Answer 13

No, that is not true.

The smallest stars are those that have exploded at the end of their lives and are now super dense small entities which are about the size of a city on Earth.

If you wish to see some illustrations and discussions of this, please visit:

http://www.astromart.com

see the article discussing Pulsars - Double Pulsars.