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What Happens to Very Small Stars Like OGLE-TR-122b as They Get Older?

-- | July 11, 2015

Question: I know what happens when a massive star collapses, but what will happen when OGLE-TR-122b collapses? Will it even collapses? Or will it go through a different process? — Maya

Answer: As the article that you forwarded indicates, OGLE-TR-122b is a recently-discovered star that is just 16% larger than Jupiter, though it is larger than a Brown Dwarf star. Brown Dwarfs are between 13 and 75 times the mass of Jupiter, while OGLE-TR-122b is measured to be 96 times the mass of Jupiter. I believe that OGLE-TR-122b will have a rather uneventful life as stars go. It should simply burn via nuclear fusion of hydrogen over a time scale that is comparable to the age of the universe (about 13.8 billion years).

Jeff Mangum

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