How Do Stars Work?

What are stars? A star is an celestial body consisting of an luminous sphere of plasma held together with its own powerful gravity by its spin. The Sun is the most famous of all stars. Other known stars include Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, and comets.

Where do stars fit in with our solar system? They formed in the center of a huge solar system, surrounded by gas and dust. Because of the solar system’s immense size and the cold temperature of space, stars require extremely large amounts of dust to form, making the outer layer very dense. Even though stars have relatively low temperatures, their mass is about one hundred times that of the sun, so their actual temperatures can never be measured directly.

Stars are made up mainly of hydrogen and helium, with other elements being produced by collisions with other stars or through nuclear processes. The sun is made up mostly of hydrogen by outnumbering helium two to one. Stars can have their mass imaged by the Very Large and Very Small galaxies using X-rays, although the emission from stars much larger than the sun can be seen with optical telescopes. Some astronomers believe that there may be another planet or another star within our solar system, and that the presence of planets prevents stars from being thrown away like dust when our planet blows away.

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