It's "small", it's dense, and it likes to fuse hydrogen. Meet EBLM J0555-57Ab:
The smallest star yet measured has been discovered by a team of astronomers led by the University of Cambridge. With a size just a sliver larger than that of Saturn, the gravitational pull at its stellar surface is about 300 times stronger than what humans feel on Earth.
The star is likely as small as stars can possibly become, as it has just enough mass to enable the fusion of hydrogen nuclei into helium. If it were any smaller, the pressure at the centre of the star would no longer be sufficient to enable this process to take place. Hydrogen fusion is also what powers the Sun, and scientists are attempting to replicate it as a powerful energy source here on Earth.
[...] "Our discovery reveals how small stars can be," said Alexander Boetticher, the lead author of the study, and a Master's student at Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory and Institute of Astronomy. "Had this star formed with only a slightly lower mass, the fusion reaction of hydrogen in its core could not be sustained, and the star would instead have transformed into a brown dwarf."
The EBLM project III. A Saturn-size low-mass star at the hydrogen-burning limit
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @07:34AM
Empty your nuts into my rectum!!
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @08:58AM (2 children)
https://www.noao.edu/news/2013/pr1311.php [noao.edu]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @09:06AM
Basically it's Moore's law.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @09:46AM
More like dim matter.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by DmT on Friday July 14 2017, @10:09AM (3 children)
So if we drop enough mass on saturn ... we can make our own bavkup star?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by FatPhil on Friday July 14 2017, @03:23PM (1 child)
Radius 0.84+0.14−0.04 R_Jup
So we'd need to find 83 more jupiters to pile into saturn in order for it to have as much matter as this star.
Data is scarse, but it appears that some brown dwarves can attain masses higher than this, but still not sustain hydrogen fusion.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @03:47PM
...keeping in mind, deuterium isn't hydrogen.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @08:49PM
Isn't that what Jupiter is there for? Self-replicating monoliths seem to be an effective method based on a documentary I saw.