A star is a massive luminous spheroid astronomical object made of plasma that is held together by its own gravity. Stars exhibit great diversity in their properties (such as mass, volume, velocity, stage in stellar evolution, and distance from Earth) and some of the outliers are so disproportionate in comparison with the general population that they are considered extreme. This is a list of such stars.
Records that are regarded as authoritative and unlikely to change at any given point are recorded on a white background, while those that could change with new information and/or discoveries are recorded on a grey background.
Also called Alpha Centauri C, it is the outlying star in a trinary star system that includes Alpha Centauri A (Rigil Kentaurus) and Alpha Centauri B (Toliman). This is currently the nearest known neighbouring star to our own Sun. This star was discovered in 1915, and its parallax was determined at the time, when enough observations were established.
Stars are being formed constantly in the universe so it is impossible to tell which star is the youngest. For information on the properties of newly formed stars, see Protostar, Young stellar object and Star formation.
This was the third star whose parallax was determined. Before Alpha Centauri, the record was held by 61 Cygni, the first star whose parallax was determined.
While it is frequently described as a yellow supergiant, especially in evolutionary terms,[16] it is classified as a bright giant based on spectrum.[17]
The apparent size of the Sun was first measured by Eratosthenes in the 3rd century BC,[39] who was the second person to measure the distance to the Sun. However, Thales of Miletus provided a measurement for the real size of the Sun in the 6th century BC, as 1⁄720 the great circle of the Sun (the orbit of the Earth)[40]
Consistent with the upper limit for red supergiants of roughly 1,500 R☉ based on the four largest stars measured in a survey, which is consistent with the current stellar evolutionary theory.[42] WOH G64 was the previous candidate[43] but was later found to be a smaller yellow hypergiant.[44]
This exceeds the predicted limit of 150 M☉, previously believed to be the limit of stellar mass, according to the leading star formation theories. R136a1 considered the most massive known by the scientific community.[50]
Several candidates exist which have a higher mass, however their mass has been measured by less precise methods and as such their mass value is regarded as less certain.
A B3V star orbited by an unknown-type star, both orbited by another unknown star, together orbited by another unknown star, all orbited by a B9III star orbiting a pair of stars which are a B9III and unknown star.
^An "average" star is a normal star which is larger than a red dwarf, but smaller than a giant star. Depending on the definition, this can also be called "Sun-like star".
^Astronomy 122: Astronomy of Stars and Galaxies, "Lecture 19: Neutron Stars"[permanent dead link], Sharon Morsink, University of Alberta, term:Winter 2011, published:2010 (accessed 2010-11-01)
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^11th European Workshop on White Dwarfs, ASP Conference Series #169, "RX J2117+3412, the hottest known pulsating PG 1159 star", Vauclair, G.; Moskalik, P.; The Wet Team, 1999, ISBN1-886733-91-0 , Bibcode:1999ASPC..169...96V , pg.96
^Levesque, Emily M.; Massey, Philip; Olsen, K. A. G.; Plez, Bertrand; Josselin, Eric; Maeder, Andre; Meynet, Georges (2005). "The Effective Temperature Scale of Galactic Red Supergiants: Cool, but Not as Cool as We Thought". The Astrophysical Journal. 628 (2): 973–985. arXiv:astro-ph/0504337. Bibcode:2005ApJ...628..973L. doi:10.1086/430901. S2CID15109583.
^Munoz-Sanchez, G.; et al. (28 November 2024). "The dramatic transition of the extreme Red Supergiant WOH G64 to a Yellow Hypergiant". arXiv:2411.19329.
^Wittkowski, M.; Hauschildt, P.H.; Arroyo-Torres, B.; Marcaide, J.M. (5 April 2012). "Fundamental properties and atmospheric structure of the red supergiant VY CMa based on VLTI/AMBER spectro-interferometry". Astronomy & Astrophysics. 540: L12. arXiv:1203.5194. Bibcode:2012A&A...540L..12W. doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201219126. S2CID54044968.
^Alexander von Boetticher; Amaury H.M.J. Triaud; Didier Queloz; Sam Gill; Monika Lendl; Laetitia Delrez; David R. Anderson; Andrew Collier Cameron; Francesca Faedi; Michaël Gillon; Yilen Gómez Maqueo Chew; Leslie Hebb; Coel Hellier; Emmanuël Jehin; Pierre F.L. Maxted; David V. Martin; Francesco Pepe; Don Pollacco; Damien Ségransan; Barry Smalley; Stéphane Udry; Richard West (12 June 2017). "The EBLM project; III. A Saturn-size low-mass star at the hydrogen-burning limit". Astronomy & Astrophysics. 604: L6. arXiv:1706.08781. Bibcode:2017A&A...604L...6V. doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201731107. S2CID54610182. EBLM_III.
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^Antoniadis, J.; Freire, P. C. C.; Wex, N.; Tauris, T. M.; Lynch, R. S.; Van Kerkwijk, M. H.; Kramer, M.; Bassa, C.; Dhillon, V. S.; Driebe, T.; Hessels, J. W. T.; Kaspi, V. M.; Kondratiev, V. I.; Langer, N.; Marsh, T. R.; McLaughlin, M. A.; Pennucci, T. T.; Ransom, S. M.; Stairs, I. H.; Van Leeuwen, J.; Verbiest, J. P. W.; Whelan, D. G. (2013). "A Massive Pulsar in a Compact Relativistic Binary". Science. 340 (6131): 1233232. arXiv:1304.6875. Bibcode:2013Sci...340..448A. doi:10.1126/science.1233232. PMID23620056. S2CID15221098.
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^ abcMayer, P.; Harmanec, P.; Zasche, P.; Brož, M.; Catalan-Hurtado, R.; Barlow, B. N.; Frondorf, W.; Wolf, M.; Drechsel, H.; Chini, R.; Nasseri, A.; Pigulski, A.; Labadie-Bartz, J.; Christie, G. W.; Walker, W. S. G.; Blackford, M.; Blane, D.; Henden, A. A.; Bohlsen, T.; Božić, H.; Jonák, J. (2022). "Towards a consistent model of the hot quadruple system HD 93206 = QZ Carinæ — I. Observations and their initial analyses". Astronomy & Astrophysics. 666: A23. arXiv:2204.07045. Bibcode:2022A&A...666A..23M. doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202142108. S2CID248177961.
^"Report of the Council of the Society to the Nineteenth Annual General Meeting", Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 4 No. 20, 8 February 1839, Royal Astronomical Society, Bibcode:1836MNRAS...4....3M