New mass determined for stars to ignite

[Brian G Turner]

Research suggests that a body with a mass of 6.7% of our sun or more is large enough to become a star - revising down a previous figure of 7-8%:

Stars can start shining at a smaller mass than we thought

 

[Vertigo]

Still 70 times the mass of poor 'little' Jupiter. Must admit I had it in my head that Jupiter was closer to stellar mass than that. As they say we learn something new every day!

 

[Parson]

Indeed. Watched a TV documentary about Jupiter yesterday (One good thing about being laid up for a month!) and I was really surprised about how weird the planet is --- a possible "diamond" ocean?! But they didn't say a thing about how close Jupiter might have been to becoming a star, but my feeling was a lot closer 1/70th the minimum mass was certainly my feeling.