Lead
"Did you see this?"
"Yes, yes!"
"Did you see that?"
"Yes, yes!"
"Quick, quick, count and see how many stars there are?"
When I was a child, every time I sang the children's song "Seven Colors of Light", the teacher wrote seven numbers on the stars in the seven colors of light and asked us to count how many stars there were.
At that time, the sun was "red", and the teacher explained: "The sun is a star, and the sun is a yellow dwarf."
So how big are the stars in the universe?
Are the stars about the size of the sun?
How big is the sun?
How much does it weigh?
1. Classification of stars.
There is a legend of "Three Emperors and Five Emperors" on the mainland.
So in ancient legends, which "emperor" did the sun and moon belong to?
This question has always been of great interest.
And our Chinese ancestors believed that the sun belonged to "Xuanyuan the Great" and the moon belonged to "Nuwa".
In fact, the sun is a star, and the moon is a satellite of the earth, a celestial body that orbits the earth.
And there are many stars in the universe, and according to the difference in temperature and color, there are many kinds of stars, but the most common are stars like the sun, which are called yellow dwarfs.
Most of the stars are such stars, and the diameter of this star is the product of the size of the sun, which can be considered small compared to the size of the sun.
On the "yellow dwarf", the number written by the teacher is the number of suns.
The concept of stars was proposed in the 17th century, as the source of light in the universe, the star is based on the sun, because the sun is the brightest star and the closest star to us.
Occasionally at night we can see some brighter stars, these are a kind of stars, that is, the sun, but most of these stars, most of them are not as bright as the sun, and the sun is bright for a reason.
However, curiosity drove a great deal of interest in these bright celestial objects.
So people began to study some of the properties of these stars, and also calculated that there are about 1 trillion stars within a distance of about two trillion light years.
Of these stars, 90% are smaller than the Sun, only 0.5% are larger than the Sun, and the remaining 9.5% are between half the mass of the Sun and a light-year.
Is it only the Sun that is a daytime star?
Or are there other stars that are the same?
In fact, the difference between the sun and a star is that a "daytime star" is a relatively bright star that has its own important energy reservoir.
The other stars are also called fainter stars according to their respective names.
In addition to the above-mentioned classifications, there is also an important classification of star size according to the size of the star, for example, smaller stars are called red dwarfs.
Stars produce color because the light produced by the star passes through the star's atmosphere.
In the process of passing through the star's atmosphere, the star's atmosphere will reflect light, resulting in a phenomenon that is the scattering of light, and the wavelength will also change, so the star has a variety of colors.
Usually the color of the wavelength of light is darker, so the longer the wavelength of stellar light, the darker the color.
At the same time, the longer the wavelength length of light, the reddish color will be.
Therefore, the shorter the wavelength length of light, the bluish color will be.
And now most scientists believe that the color of stars in the universe is positively correlated with the size and brightness of stars.
In other words, the more yellow the star, the larger and brighter the star will be.
The darker the star, the smaller and brighter the star will be.
From this point of view, red dwarfs are the smallest stars.
2. The "smallest" star.
Red dwarfs are known as the smallest stars in the universe, and one of the more famous stars is Proxima Centauri.
Proxima Centauri, also known as the "red dwarf", has two stars, one with a spectral level of M1V and the other a star with a spectral level of M5V, and the "aliases" of these two stars are Proxima Centauri A and Proxima B.
The distance between these two stars is about 4.246 light-years, and Proxima Centauri is very close to us, it is the third closest star to Earth.
The birth of the "smallest" star takes place on a star around Proxima Centauri A.
Stellar J0523 is the smallest star ever observed around Proxima Centauri A.
The star J0523, known as "Ebs (star)", was carefully measured by scientists after a series of observations and comparisons, and finally decided that the star was a red dwarf and classified it as an M8Vp star.
So how much mass does this red dwarf J0523 have?
After very careful measurements of the star, the final conclusion was that the mass of the star is about 80 times that of the star Jupiter.
In other words, the mass of this star J0523 is about 0.08 times the mass of the Sun.
So how big is this red dwarf J0523?
According to the empirical formula: the mass of the star = "radius" "radius" "radius".
The radius of this red dwarf J0523 is about 0.8 times that of Jupiter, so the volume of this red dwarf J0523 is about 0.80.80.8 = 0.512 Jupiter, which means that the size of this red dwarf J0523 is smaller than Jupiter.
3. The difference between red and yellow dwarfs.
So how different is this red dwarf J0523 from the Sun?
As can be seen from the above, although the mass of this red dwarf J0523 is greater than that of Jupiter, and there is still some light, it is smaller than Jupiter in terms of volume.
The Sun is about 1,000 times more massive than the star Jupiter, and it contains 99% of the total mass of the solar system and is radiant.
But the Sun is still very small compared to the red dwarf star J0523.
From a time perspective, the red dwarf star J0523 outlived the Sun, and although its mass and light are not as good as the Sun's, its lifespan is 1,000 times that of the Sun.
And because of its relatively small mass, and compared with the sun, the average density is greater than that of the sun, so it can be said that it is small and exquisite, so it can be said that it has a very long lifespan, up to trillions of years.
However, the sun does not live as long, only 10 billion years.
So how did the lifespan of this red dwarf star J0523 come about?
The lifespan of the red dwarf J0523 is calculated based on mass and energy, and the reason why stars in the universe produce light is also because of the action of nuclear fusion inside the star, that is, nuclear fusion is the process of creating the gravitational field of the star.
The process of creating a gravitational field of a star needs to consume the energy inside the star itself, and the star's own energy alone cannot maintain the time it shines on the star, which is the process of energy consumption by the star.
And this process is a slow process, and the rate of energy consumption is not the same, depending on its mass.
Stars with relatively large masses will have a very fast rate of nuclear fusion and a very fast rate of energy consumption, and once the energy is consumed, the star will have a stellar explosion.
Stars with smaller masses will have a slower rate of nuclear fusion and a slower change in kinetic energy, which means that the star will have a longer lifespan.
However, on the other hand, stars with relatively small masses have less material that can make a gravitational field, and because the gravitational field has less matter, the ionization distance will be relatively close.
But gravity is slower for the speed at which molecules interact, which means that the star formation process will be slower, and this process will last longer.
Hence small stars are comparatively longer, while large stars are the opposite and have a shorter process.
It is worth mentioning that although this red dwarf J0523 is small, if it is said that small stars can form planets, then this red dwarf J0523 is possible, because small stars produce a variety of elements, and these elements are harmful, but there are also beneficial.
Small stars produce many kinds of elements, which means that the elements produced by small stars have a lot of energy, and these elements are the raw materials for the formation of planets.
epilogue
Although this red dwarf star J0523 is small, it has infinite possibilities, so the stars in the universe are really big and small, and they are also interesting.
And scientists are studying these stars scientifically, hoping to one day unlock their wonders.