Is Jupiter ALMOST a dwarf star?

[dstebbins]

Think about it:

 

Jupiter is a gas planet.

Stars are made almost entirely of gas.

 

It has sixteen satellites that orbit it, some of which are even bigger than Mercury (now, the smallest planet).

Stars have similar rocky objects orbiting them; they're called "planets."

 

Jupiter emits its own radio waves.

So do dwarf stars.

 

Jupiter is so darn big, that if it were just a little bigger, it could probably perform fusion at its core (in fact, it already does; just not enough to heat a planet).

Dwarf stars tend to be around that size.

 

It seems to me that, had the conditions been only slightly different, we'd be living in a dual-star solar system right now. Would you agree?

[VedekPako]

Jupiter needs a lot more mass to be close to being a Dwarf Star.

[Moontanman]

All the other planets combined added to Jupiter would not be enough mass to allow Jupiter to be a brown dwarf much less a star.

[Mr Skeptic]

On a slightly related note, if we nuked Jupiter, could we make it go all thermonuclear on the solar system? That would be shiny!

[Klaynos]

On a slightly related note, if we nuked Jupiter, could we make it go all thermonuclear on the solar system? That would be shiny!

 

No. You need to add A LOT of mass...

[williamthegreat]

Compare the size of jupiter with exo-planets which have already been discovered to be much larger, and I think you have the answer there - even a dwarf sun is gigantically larger

[Mr Skeptic]

No. You need to add A LOT of mass...

 

Oh, I don't mean to turn Jupiter into a star. I mean converting a significant portion of its mass into energy. We use fission to ignite fusion in thermonuclear weapons. We use inertia as containment for certain fusion reactions. Jupiter has a lot of mass so a lot of inertia. Also it has hydrogen that is quite compressed already, especially at the core.

[swaha]

it dosnt have enough mass to be called a dwarf star.

[Moontanman]

Oh, I don't mean to turn Jupiter into a star. I mean converting a significant portion of its mass into energy. We use fission to ignite fusion in thermonuclear weapons. We use inertia as containment for certain fusion reactions. Jupiter has a lot of mass so a lot of inertia. Also it has hydrogen that is quite compressed already, especially at the core.

 

Yes but still not enough to initiate self sustaining nuclear reactions and turn Jupiter into a star.

[Airbrush]

"Is Jupiter ALMOST a dwarf star?"

 

Brown dwarfs have the lowest mass of dwarf stars, with masses between 13 Jupiters, at the low end, up to about 75 to 80 Jupiters at the high end. So Jupiter is not almost a dwarf star, not even almost a brown dwarf.

 

"Brown dwarfs are sub-stellar objects with a mass below that necessary to maintain hydrogen-burning nuclear fusion reactions in their cores, as do stars on the main sequence, but which have fully convective surfaces and interiors, with no chemical differentiation by depth. Brown dwarfs occupy the mass range between that of large gas giant planets and the lowest mass stars; this upper limit is between 75 and 80 Jupiter masses (MJ). Currently there is some debate as to what criterion to use to define the separation between a brown dwarf from a giant planet at very low brown dwarf masses (~13 MJ ), and whether brown dwarfs are required to have experienced fusion at some point in their history."

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_dwarf