An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics
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The amount of hydrogen necessary to form a star; more specifically the minimum mass to ignite → hydrogen fusion. → Hydrogen burning will start at a limit of about 0.08 Msun, or 75 → Jupiter masses. Below 0.08 Msun, the core never gets hot enough to trigger → hydrogen fusion. → Protostars less massive than this limit are known as → brown dwarfs or → planets if the mass is less than 13 Jupiter masses. Above 13 Jupiter masses, some minor nuclear reactions (→ deuterium burning) occur that do not provide much energy. The minimum mass for → star formation is a critical parameter with profound astrophysical, cosmological, and even anthropic consequences.

→ minimum; → stellar; → mass.

1) The quantity of mass contained in a star. It is usually expressed in terms of the → solar mass (Msun).
2) A component of the total mass of a → galaxy represented by the mass of all its stars.

→ stellar; → mass.