Scientists have discovered the smallest star (to date). Using the 8.2m Very Large Telescope (VLT) telescope at ESO Paranal Observatory, Chile, the star (named OGLE-TR-122b) which is only 16% larger than Jupiter, was identified during analysis of data gathered during the planet-hunting OGLE project. The star has a sun-like companion, OGLE-TR-122, which dims as the smaller star passes in front of it once a week. This allowed the scientists to measure the mass, radius, and other properties of this small star.
Smallest of them all (Courtesy: The Register)
Smallest of them all (Courtesy: The Register)
Smallest Star
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3 Comments:
What's the life cycle for such a micro star?
Plus, what happens when they exhaust all of their nuclear fuel? Do we still go through the red giant -> super nova stages?
I read recently that our sun is made from the debris of an earlier star. So our sun is at least a second generation star.
It's thought that first generation stars could never give rise to planets that bare life because the stars do not contain enough of the ninety-two elements...
Micro-stars will proceed to the red-giant stage, just like sun would. After the red giant, the star would settle down into a white dwarf stage. That is the end of the road for stars weighing 1.4 times solar mass, or less.
Larger stars tend to burn out faster (these are normally the blue stars, with surface temperature of the order of 10,000K or more). These stars would explode in a supernova, and then if enough mass is left behind, settle down to a neutron star, or even a black hole.
Sun is a second generation star, (partly) created from the debris of a supernova. Heavier elements (heavier than iron, which has atomic number 26) cannot be created through fusion reactions, since it takes more energy to create such nuclei than to break them. Heavier-than-iron elements are created in the outer layers of the supernova, due to extreme shock waves generated by the explosion.
"It's thought that first generation stars could never give rise to planets that bear life"..
Possibly. But life has unusual ways of starting up.. so who knows!
Many of these galaxies are so far away (and therefore so faint) that it takes days of observation to detect one sometimes. Thats a lot of time, so new galaxies are few and far between.
Also, it is not enough to just 'see' a star. You have to be able to measure its brightness/aparrent motion (if you can)/composition (using the spectral graph), to make an accurate assessment of how far it is/what it is/when it was born. That takes time as well.
And of course, equipments are getting better too, so that has an effect as well.
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