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Astronomy

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    $\begingroup$ Thank you. So even the smallest stars produce much more massive remnants than a planet? Or perhaps actually the mass lost when a star dies is greater (as a percentage) when the star is bigger? What is the smallest possible mass for a remnant? $\endgroup$
    – P Varga
    Commented Feb 7, 2019 at 13:37
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    $\begingroup$ Yes, the smallest mass that can undergo fusion is a Brown Dwarf <en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_dwarf> and the lightest they can be is 13x the mass of Jupiter or roughly 4000x the mass of the Earth. And Brown Dwarfs are just barely stars -- they can't fuse hydrogen, but fuse the tiny amounts of deuterium present before sputtering out. The smallest "real" stars are more than 10,000 times the Earth's mass. $\endgroup$
    – Mark Olson
    Commented Feb 7, 2019 at 14:39
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    $\begingroup$ +1 but it should be pointed that the surface and outer layers of a white dwarf is not degenerate matter. When the white dwarf cools enough, they could became rather similar to a giant planet. $\endgroup$
    – Pere
    Commented Feb 7, 2019 at 19:35
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    $\begingroup$ What's more, the iron core of the Earth is very much like degenerate matter, the main difference is the kinetic energy of the degenerate electrons is so small (due to the lower mass) that many of the electrons get captured by the iron nuclei, so it acts like there are fewer degenerate electrons around. That's why the core is smaller than a white dwarf, even though its gravity is weaker. So there's not as much difference between a planet and a white dwarf as you might think. $\endgroup$
    – Ken G
    Commented Feb 7, 2019 at 20:44
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    $\begingroup$ It's not the "matter" that is degenerate, it is the electrons. There is not a great deal of difference between a metallic solid and the interior of a white dwarf apart from the density. $\endgroup$
    – ProfRob
    Commented Feb 8, 2019 at 7:13