Therefore the smallest of red dwarf stars (~7.5% M ☉) exist at the lower limit of stellar mass – they are the smallest possible stars – as the laws of nature dictate that masses of gas below this cannot maintain the nuclear fusion that defines a star. The minimum mass of a red dwarf is believed to be about 7.5% the mass of the Sun because anything less than this and the body of hot gas will not possess a mass great enough to provide the right densities, pressures, and temperatures in the core sufficient to ignite and sustain nuclear fusion. M ☉ is a symbol for a unit used in astronomy where M is for “mass” and the symbol ☉ stands for the Sun, so we can read the symbol literally as “mass (of the) Sun.” We employ the concept of solar mass in astronomy to measure the mass of all sorts of astronomical objects in units relative to the mass of the Sun, which is convenient because it gives us a relative scale for understanding masses that are fundamentally beyond comprehension. As a percentage, the smallest class of stars, red dwarf stars, range in mass from 7.5% to 50% the mass of the Sun. Proxima Centauri is the closest star to our solar system, at about 4.2 light-years distant.Ĭredit: NASA/CXC/SAO) Red Dwarf Stars are very low mass stars, ranging from 0.075 to 0.5 times the mass of the sun (0.075-0.5 M ☉). An image of the Red Dwarf star Proxima Centauri taken by the Chandra Satellite in x-ray range.
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