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A star is a luminous spheroid of plasma held together by self-gravity. [1] The nearest star to Earth is the Sun.Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night; their immense distances from Earth make them appear as fixed points of light.
In 2016, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) organized a Working Group on Star Names (WGSN) [2] to catalog and standardize proper names for stars. The WGSN's first bulletin, dated July 2016, [3] included a table of 125 stars comprising the first two batches of names approved by the WGSN (on 30 June and 20 July 2016) together with names of stars adopted by the IAU Executive Committee ...
A simple chart for classifying the main star types using Harvard classification. In astronomy, stellar classification is the classification of stars based on their spectral characteristics.
A multiple star system consists of two or more stars that appear from Earth to be close to one another in the sky. [dubious – discuss] This may result from the stars actually being physically close and gravitationally bound to each other, in which case it is a physical multiple star, or this closeness may be merely apparent, in which case it is an optical multiple star [a] Physical multiple ...
The following is a list of particularly notable actual or hypothetical stars that have their own articles in Wikipedia, but are not included in the lists above. BPM 37093 — a diamond star Cygnus X-1 — X-ray source
Representative lifetimes of stars as a function of their masses The change in size with time of a Sun-like star Artist's depiction of the life cycle of a Sun-like star, starting as a main-sequence star at lower left then expanding through the subgiant and giant phases, until its outer envelope is expelled to form a planetary nebula at upper right Chart of stellar evolution
The internal structure of a main sequence star depends upon the mass of the star. In stars with masses of 0.3–1.5 solar masses (M ☉), including the Sun, hydrogen-to-helium fusion occurs primarily via proton–proton chains, which do not establish a steep temperature gradient. Thus, radiation dominates in the inner portion of solar mass stars.
K-type main-sequence stars are about three to four times as abundant as G-type main-sequence stars, making planet searches easier. [17] K-type stars emit less total ultraviolet and other ionizing radiation than G-type stars like the Sun (which can damage DNA and thus hamper the emergence of nucleic acid based life). In fact, many peak in the red.