#jsDisabledContent { display:none; } My Account | Register | Help

List of least massive stars

Article Id: WHEBN0001956170
Reproduction Date:

 Title: List of least massive stars Author: World Heritage Encyclopedia Language: English Subject: Collection: Publisher: World Heritage Encyclopedia Publication Date:

List of least massive stars

This is a list of the least-massive stars/brown dwarfs known. The list is ordered by solar mass and Jovian mass.

This list includes brown dwarfs and red dwarfs. The name of each brown dwarf has background color brown, and the names of and red dwarfs are against a background of red or orange, depending on whether they are cooler class M or warmer class M. (The objects are not actually these colors.)

Although brown dwarfs lack sufficient mass to ignite core hydrogen fusion (75-87 Jupiters, depending on metallicity), the smallest true stars (red dwarfs) can have such cool atmospheric temperatures (below 4,000 K), that it is difficult to distinguish them from brown dwarfs.

A brown dwarf's mass cannot be lower than 13 Jupiter masses, because below this critical point the core does not get hot enough by gravitational pressure to start the fusion of deuterium. According to the brown dwarf interior models, typical conditions in the core for density, temperature, and pressure are expected to be the following:

$\rho_c \sim 10 - 10^3\,\mathrm\left\{\tfrac\left\{g\right\}\left\{cm^3\right\}\right\}$
$T_c \lesssim 3 \times 10^6\,\mathrm\left\{K\right\}$
$P_c \sim 10^5\,\mathrm\left\{Mbar\right\}$

A brown dwarf, therefore, is heavier than a gas-giant planet, but not quite massive enough to be a star.

The colour code for the table below is as follows: Brown = Brown Dwarf, Pink = Red Dwarf, Orange: Stars of stellar class "K".

List of the lightest stars
Star name Solar Mass Jupiter Mass
Jupiter (as reference) 0.00096 1
---------------- ----- --
OTS 44 0.013 15
Oph1622 A 0.014 15.5
Oph1622 B 0.016 17.5
Gliese 229B 0.021 25
2M1207 0.021 25
Epsilon Indi BB 0.024 28
HD 98230B 0.037 39
Teide 1 0.041 43
Epsilon Indi BA 0.045 47
Gliese 570D 0.050 52
LP 944-020 0.056 58
2MASS 0415-0935 0.060 63
DENIS 1048-0039 0.065 68
2MASS 1835+3259 0.070 75
DENIS 0255-4700 0.070 75
V1581 Cygni C 0.074 79
2MASS 0532+8246 0.077 81
LHS 3003 (GJ 3877) 0.077 81
Gliese 165B 0.080 84
Gliese 623B 0.080 84
LHS 1070B 0.080 84
LHS 1070C 0.080 84
Ross 614B 0.080 84
Teegarden's Star 0.080 84
Van Biesbroeck's Star (VB 10) 0.080 84
Gliese 105C 0.082 86
LHS 292 0.083 87
LP 731-058 0.083 87
DX Cancri 0.087 91
Van Briesboeck 8 (VB 8) 0.088 92
OGLE-TR-122b 0.091 96
Wolf 359 0.1 105
---------------- ----- --
Sun (as reference) 1 1042

Cha 110913-773444

The object Cha 110913-773444 is sometimes referred to as being the smallest brown dwarf, but its mass is too light for this (8 times Jupiter's mass). It is even less massive than some known exoplanets. Therefore it can better be seen as a so-called sub-brown dwarf or a planemo. Some stars are listed as red dwarfs although they should be listed as brown dwarfs due to their mass, and vice versa.