Could Jupiter be a star if it was a little bigger? Could ever evolve to become a star in the future?

Answer 1

according to arthur c clarke

Answer 2

Yes, Jupiter could be a star if it was a little bigger. If it were a hundred times larger (sounds like a lot, I know, but by astronomical terms that's actually pretty darn small) it could become a star. As far as I know it will never "evolve" into a star because that would require that it suddenly had a large source of gas, mainly hydrogen. Jupiter is mostly gas as it is, so it's not that much of a reach in imagination to think that Jupiter could be a star...we could have had a binary solar system if Jupiter HAD been a hundred times larger, which would have been very bad for life on earth, since it would have made planetary orbits unstable and Earth would probably be a lot hotter.

Answer 3

Jupiter could be a star if it was bigger. Just like most stars Jupiter has a hot core. It is possible that jupiter becomes a star in the future but the process would take about 5 to 7 billion years.

Answer 4

Stars are huge balls of hot gas that emit their own light they burn hydrogen in their cores and have nuclear fusion going on inside. A planet does not have nuclear fusion. Unlike stars, planets get their light from the sun. Jupiter is only 0.001 masses solar. This makes the smallest possible stars roughly 80 times more massive than Jupiter; that is, Jupiter would need something like 80 times more mass to become even one of the smallest and feeblest
red dwarfs. Since there is nothing approaching 79 Jupiter masses of hydrogen floating around anywhere in the solar system where it could be
added to Jupiter, there is no feasible way that Jupiter could become a star.

Answer 5

Jupiter could very much be considered a star if it were bigger. Comparitively, it's not much bigger than the sun right now. In the future, Jupiter "evolving" or gaining size is not very likely, since the lifespan of Jupiter is probably less than that of the sun. Then again, anything could happen that humans have no way of predicting.

:)

Answer 6

In order to become a star Jupiter would have to be 80 times bigger than it is now. It will never be able to become a star in the future because their isn't enough mass left in our solar system, that is mass not taken up by planets and moons, that could be gravitationally attracted to Jupiter to make it much larger.

Answer 7

Jupiter can be as big as a star, but it will never become a one. The reason why is that you would need a fusion reaction in the core of the planet and if that happens, the planet will just blow up. The mass of Jupiter's core is not as dense as a star and the likelihood that we would have another sun in our solar system is 1 billion to 1.

Answer 8

Both JUpiter and Saturn are failed stars which do not contain the necessary mass to ignite and become stars in their own right. To evolve into a star a planet/planetoid like object would have to smash into them and add the requisite mass necessary to start them down the merry path to nuclear fusion. This is VERY unlikely to ever happen, perhaps 1:10^1000000000.

Answer 9

If it where about five times bigger I believe it would have been a star. It is not impossible for it to become a star, sufficient mass would have to come in from somewhere else, but if enough mass where added it would be a case of adding Jupiter to something else.

Answer 10

technically its already a star. Jupiter can be seen in the night sky, even without a telescope. you just gotta know were it is.
course if were going for the scientific definition, then no it isn't a star. and size really has nothing to do with it. since, there are tons of stars in out universe that make the sun look like a golfball in comparison.

Answer 11

No- even as massive as it is, it's not even close enough to a star to begin to fuse on it's own. Astronomers have detected planets around other stars up to 50 times Jupiter's mass.