What makes a planet different from a star?
Rock vs Furnace
What makes a planet different from a star?
When you look up at the night sky, you see thousands of bright dots. Some are planets. Some are stars. They look almost the same from here — tiny pinpricks of light. But up close? One is a cold rock drifting through space. The other is a nuclear furnace hot enough to melt anything in the universe.
A star makes its own light. Deep in its core, hydrogen atoms are being crushed together so hard they fuse into helium — the same reaction that powers a hydrogen bomb, but happening continuously, forever. That fusion releases so much energy it lights up half a galaxy. Our Sun is a star. It's been burning for five billion years and it'll keep going for five billion more.
