List of least massive stars

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This is a list of the least-massive stars 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 star'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:

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".

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.

See also

Star portal

• List of most massive stars
• List of stars
• List of brown dwarfs

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