I considered those two things at first too, but then I realized it was innaccurate.

For example, there is a star that is 1000x more massive than our sun, and it has a planet orbiting it that is the same size as our sun.

The body with lower mass wouldn't be a planet just because the other one has more mass. That'd result in a binary star system. For example, the brightest star in the night sky is Sirius, however Sirius is actually a binary star system. The distance between the two of them ranges between 8 and 31 AU (1 AU is the distance between the earth and the sun).

That is if in fact fusion occurs spontaneously when something is large enough.

This post was edited by Torm1 on Jan 10 2011 08:30pm

gravity is not strong enough to crush us.

i think about gravity on other planets as well. mars doesnt have enough gravity at sea level to give any air pressure (not necessarily breathable -doesnt matter) or to keep our bones/muscles strong and so a martian shelter would have equal pressure on inside an outside of walls. what would the difference be at the bottom of valles marineris? pressure/gravity would obviously be much stonger but how much?

This post was edited by juliusjuice on Jan 12 2011 01:44pm

If the forces pushing on the material are large enough, fusion will start every time. To my knowledge there are no objects the same size/slightly smaller then our sun that are considered anything but a star.

It is. So... Yeah, that's that.



Yeah, you're right. Also, the smallest star yet discovered is much smaller than the Sun, and it has a mass of ~93x the mass of Jupiter (the Sun, by comparison, has a mass of ~1050x the mass of Jupiter). The limit for smallest possible star that burns Hydrogen is estimated at about 75x Jupiter's mass, and Brown Dwarfs (which are too small to burn Hydrogen) have masses ranging between 13x and 75x Jupiter's mass. Astrophysicists are hoping to find something on the brink between a Brown Dwarf and a star that can burn hydrogen so they can confirm theories about Brown Dwarfs' internal structure.
Source: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7098-planet-search-reveals-smallest-star-ever.html

This post was edited by bentherdonethat on Jan 12 2011 03:44pm

Since we're talking about this, here is something cool to look at and put things into perspective:



7 million of our suns could fit inside that last star. Can you imagine the size of the beings on that Star's planets if there are any.

Sorry I took this thread so off topic, I get a little carried away when sharing my thoughts and contemplations.

This post was edited by Torm1 on Jan 12 2011 05:34pm

A star being large doesn't mean that it's planets or any life on said planets will be large.

good thing the earth isn't a gaussian object, amirite?