What is a Red Dwarf?
Red dwarfs are small, relatively cool stars that are the most numerous type of star in our galaxy, if not the universe. This is difficult to verify because red dwarfs are not very luminous (ranging from 0.01% to 10% the luminosity of the Sun), making it difficult to observe them from astronomical distances. Proxima Centuari, the closest star to the solar system, is a red dwarf. Red dwarfs have a mass between 7.5% and 50% that of the Sun. More massive stars are called yellow dwarfs, while less massive are called brown dwarfs. All dwarfs are part of the most common class of stars, known as the “main sequence”. Outside the main sequence are white dwarfs, which have exhausted their nuclear fuel, and giant stars, which swell up to form stellar nebulae or explode into supernovas. A red dwarf uses the same nuclear fusion reaction as the Sun to generate energy: fusion of hydrogen into helium through the proton-proton chain interaction. But because red dwarfs are less massive, their core is les
