this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2025
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Let me introduce you to UY Scuti.
Upvoted for linking Wikipedia and not some shitty YT video.
You can't get to this star in Elite Dangerous, but you can get to VY Canis Majoris which is 1420 radii
the view from the planet there is astonishing
what is the minimum and maximum size of a star? i.e. what is the minimum mass to ignite hydrogen fusion or whatever generates heat, and what is the maximum size where it just collapses into a black hole?
The minimum is about 80 Jupiter Masses. Smaller than that and you can't start fusing.
Maximum size is harder to answer. It's determined by the Eddington Limit. Which describes the luminosity at which radiation pressure is enough to overcome gravity for a certain mass.
It's thought that the maximum mass of a star is somewhere around 150 solar masses, but there's some evidence to contradict this, as we've seen a handful of very old stars with masses or luminosities higher than they should be.