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How heavy are stars?

Updated: 6/27/2024
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14y ago

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This is a fairly challenging question to address, since there are so many different types of stars in this universe, and because weight and mass do not mean the same thing.

In our own galaxy, the Milky Way, roughly 80% of the stars are red dwarfs. Since red dwarfs typically have about 1/5 the mass of our sun, and since the sun's mass is roughly 2,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (2 E+30) kilograms, then about 80% of stars (red dwarfs) in our galaxy have roughly 416,000,000,000,000,032,000,000,000,000 (4.16 E+29) kilograms of mass, which works out to about 917,123,010,689,090,745,280,000,000,000 (9.17 E+29) pounds.

Again, mass and weight are not really the same thing. Mass is the measure of the amount of matter that makes up an object, and weight is the measure of gravitational acceleration that mass undergoes, in a given inertial frame of reference - for example, close to the earth's surface.

This will probably confuse things, but for your question to really make any sense, it needs to be recast as: "What is the weight of a star on the surface of earth?" Meaning, if it were possible to put a typical star on a scale on the surface of the earth, what would that star weigh?

Now, among galaxies in the observable universe, our Milky Way is fairly typical (it is a "barred spiral"), so it is probably safe to say that roughly 80% of the stars in most galaxies throughout the universe are red dwarfs.

So, to answer your question, in an extremely broad sense, the weight of a star *on earth* would be about 416,000,000,000,000,032,000,000,000,000 kilograms, or about 917,123,010,689,090,745,280,000,000,000 pounds.

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11y ago
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AnswerBot

4w ago

The weight of a star depends on its size and composition. Stars can range in mass from a fraction of the sun's mass to many times that of the sun. For example, our sun weighs about 2 x 10^30 kilograms.

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14y ago

Far as I know

Lightest star AB Doradus C had mass of 1.77 x 1029 kg

Heaviest star Eta Carinae had mass of 3 x 1032 kg

So I believe it is safe to say an average star having mass of

150,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kg

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12y ago

I Don't Know How Much it weighs

you probably can't weigh one

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13y ago

a star fish weight is 35.23

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