Choose your own star!*

Blue, big and massive? Small, red and low-mass? Something in-between? Pick your own, and see how it changes with time.

*This series of posts are an homage to the Choose your own adventure book series, which my Earthling alter-ego so much enjoyed in her youth.

Relative sizes of a red dwarf, a Sun-like star, a blue giant star and a blue supergiant star. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser

Today you feel like giving yourself a treat. You have decided to adopt a star. But which one will you pick? Staring at the window display, there is such high variety that it is hard to make a decision. Stars seem to come in many sizes and colours. Red, blue, white, yellow. Small, medium, big and extra large. And so many possible combinations.

Ok, let's think about your needs for a while. You want a star that lasts for some time, not one that is reaching the end of its life, right? That narrows the selection a bit.

You also want a fully-functional star. Waiting millions of years for a star to ignite its hydrogen core is not for you.

Then, what you are looking for is one of the so-called "Main Sequence stars" (we can talk about the reason for the odd name any other day): They are stars that have completed their formation process and are now stabilised, with barely no changes in size, mass, brightness or surface temperature for a long period of time. This is achieved thanks to a delicate balance between gravity –which pulls them together– and the pressure exerted by the enormous amount of light produced in their interior –which is pushing outward, preventing the star from collapsing.

Luckily, we are not short of these stars today in the Galaxy. As a matter of fact, more than 90% of stars in the Milky Way belong to this category.

I can tell you are overwhelmed. Don't worry. In terms of breeding, we can reduce all these stars to three or four basic types. Let me show them to you.

A star like the Sun

A yellow dwarf star like our Sun. Credit: Merikanto (via Wikimedia Commons)

First, we have a star similar to the Sun. Here you are: Yellowish, not very big, but not too small either, with a surface temperature of about 5,500 degrees Celsius. This star will remain unaltered for about ten billion years. It is a good option if you want to explore the opportunity to develop forms of life, since you have plenty of time for experimentation and evolution.

(Please note that any planets must be purchased separately)

A red dwarf

A red dwarf star. Credit: Merikanto (vía Wikimedia Commons)

If you want a truly long-lasting star, try a red dwarf. It is small and cold (its temperature lies below 3,300 degrees Celsius), but it will live for trillions of years. Not the most fashionable, but certainly the most reliable star you can find.

This star has a very low mass (less than 25% of the Sun's mass) and is very dim. Therefore, despite red dwarfs being the most common type of star, one does not see them as often as one would expect.

A blue giant or supergiant

A blue giant star. Credit: Merikanto (vía Wikimedia Commons)

But if you are looking for something really exclusive, then you should choose a blue giant or supergiant star. True, these stars won't live very long (only a few million years), but don't they look amazing with that blue glow and those enormous sizes? They can be even ten times bigger than the Sun and can weigh several hundred solar masses in the most extreme cases. Is that too much for you? Then, I suggest you pick the one here, about ten solar masses, or this other one, of around thirty solar masses.

Be careful manipulating them, though: They are very, very hot! Several ten thousand degrees in fact. Not to mention their fast winds. You won't want to stand in front of them right after a visit to your hairdresser!

So which star do you prefer? Make your choice and keep reading!

If you want to purchase the Sun-like star, go to this post.

If you decided to get the red dwarf, go to this post.

If you chose one of the massive stars, go to this post.

(Will be updated with the links as the new posts are published)