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WHAT IS THE DENSITY OF STARS?

Stars are gigantic balls of gas, mostly hydrogen gas. There is so much gas and other material that the gravity of this huge gas-ball holds everything together. There is so much gravity that the gas becomes very dense and hot.


Not all white dwarf stars have exactly the same density, but they come in range of about 10,000 to 10,000,000 grams per cubic centimeter. To give you a sense of just how dense that is, our sun has a density of about 1 gram per cubic centimeter, which is actually the same as water here on Earth.

Neutron stars are even more dense than white dwarfs, estimated at around 10,000,000,000,000 grams per cubic centimeter!


Within a parsec or so of the center, the density of stars is 10 million stars per cubic parsec. To put this number in perspective, the density of stars in the Sun's neighborhood is only 0.2 stars per cubic parsec. Near the center of our galaxy, the average distance between neighboring stars is only 1000 A.U. If the star Sirius were only 1000 A.U. from the Sun, it would be twelve times brighter than the full moon. If we lived close to the galactic center, the night sky would be full of stars with extremely high apparent brightness. We would be able to read by starlight at night."


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