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All about M-Type Stars

On 26th Feb 2023, I wrote a blog about how stars are classified. Today, this blog is going to part of a specific type of star. M-Type Stars.

All about M-Type Stars

M-type stars can either be very small or very big. The smallest versions, M-Type Dwarfs, are in fact, the most common stars in the universe. Their mass tends to be below 40% of the mass of our sun, their luminosity is usually very dim and red in color and these stars commonly have very long lifetimes because they burn their hydrogen slowly.

The larger versions, Red Giants, are basically stars that are so big they are about to disperse. Red Super/Hypergiants are even larger and more extreme. (Remember that M-Type refers to the color, which in this case is red)

Fun facts about M-Type Stars

  1. The largest discovered star(as of writing this article), Stephenson 2-18, is a M-Type Hypergiant.

  2. The smallest Red Dwarfs can live upto than 10 trillion Years, whilst the largest Red Super & Hypergiants can only live for a few million years.

  3. The closest star to Earth is a Red Dwarf named Proxima Centauri.

  4. Unlike most stars, Red Dwarfs don't expand, but actually shrink.

  5. Red Dwarfs make up almost 70 percent of all stars.

  6. Red Supergiants make up only 0.001 percent of all stars.

  7. There are less than 100 known Hypergiant stars in the Milky Way, and not all of them are M-Type.

Ending Comments

In conclusion, M-Type Stars are some of the most diverse types of stars. Some, are so small you can barely see them from here, and others are so large and bright that they are more visible than some of the planets.

Stay tuned for my next blog! This is Abinav Atreya, signing out.