Could JUPITER Become a Star?

Jupiter is often called a ‘failed star’ because, although it is mostly comprise of hydrogen like most normal stars, it is not gigantic enough to commence "thermo nuclear reactions" in its core and thus become a ‘real star’.

But the term ‘failed star’ is a bit of a misnomer. According to Theory, any object at all could be made into a star, simply by adding enough matter to it. With enough mass, the internal pressure and temperature of the object will reach the threshold needed to start thermo nuclear reactions. That threshold is the least for the simplest element, hydrogen. In order to turn Jupiter into a star like the Sun, for example, you would have to add about 1,000 times the mass of Jupiter.

But, to make a cooler ‘red dwarf’, you would only need to add about 80 Jupiter masses. Although the exact numbers are still a bit uncertain, it is possible that a ‘brown dwarf’ could still form (in which deuterium, rather than hydrogen, fuses in the star’s core) with only about 13 Jupiter masses.

So, Jupiter cannot and will not spontaneously become a star, but, if a minimum of 13 extra Jupiter-mass objects happen to collide with it, there is a chance it will.