My Experience Learning About Stars

I have always been curious about how small or large a star can be. While learning about stars, I discovered that some scientists have theorized about preon stars, which could be extremely tiny but very dense. They might have the mass of a moon or even a planet, although they have never been confirmed. I also learned that neutron stars are among the smallest confirmed stellar remnants, while red dwarfs, such as Proxima Centauri, are the smallest normal stars.

What surprised me most was how enormous some stars can become. Betelgeuse is hundreds of times larger than the Sun, while stars such as UY Scuti may be more than a thousand times wider. I also learned that our Sun will eventually expand into a red giant in about five billion years. It may swallow Mercury, Venus, and possibly Earth. Learning about stars helped me understand how extreme, powerful, and surprising the universe can be.

Image credit: [Typhoon2021 via Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Quasi-Star_size_comparison.png). The CC0 comparison shows the Sun, the Sun’s red giant phase, Betelgeuse, UY Scuti, and Stephenson 2-18 alongside a hypothetical quasi-star and the Solar System.