3 ms·

Short answer, it's a solid hunk of rock. Stars are not. Stars are a mass of incandescent gasses; a gigantic nuclear furnace where hydrogen is smelt into heliu

Short answer, it's a solid hunk of rock. Stars are not. Stars are a mass of incandescent gasses; a gigantic nuclear furnace where hydrogen is smelt into helium at a temperature of millions of degrees. Gaseous planets and stars will collapse into something solid (or explode). Not all stars collapse to explode though. They have to be 1.4 times the size of our Sun to do that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekhar_limit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekhar_limit

Keyframe 4y ago
Mass, not size.
- grendelt 4y ago
  Trying to keep it simple for those who would ask the question in the first place and head off the follow-up: "What's the difference between size and mass?"
  - grayclhn 4y ago
    When discussing compression, the difference between size and mass is kind of important. :)
marcosdumay 4y ago
> Stars are not. Stars core pretty much are. Or rather, "solid" is a bad name because it is a specific name for material that is much more compressible than what is there.
popularrecluse 4y ago
Actually, the sun is a miasma of incandescent plasma. Forget what they told you before. https://tmbw.net/wiki/Why_Does_The_Sun_Really_Shine%3F https://tmbw.net/wiki/Why_Does_The_Sun_Really_Shine%3F
sgtnoodle 4y ago
Fascinating. Definitely very different environments. Stars are not places where we could live, but here on Earth there would be no life without the light our sun gives.
nanomonkey 4y ago
I see what you did there. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JdWlSF195Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JdWlSF195Y [They Might be Giants - Why does the sun shine?]