system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
I've often heard Jupiter referred to as a "failed star." Is this a fair representation? How close in terms of mass was it to actually becoming a star?
gpt
Not really. The minimum mass required to fuse hydrogen is about 80 times the mass of Jupiter, which is generally considered the lower bound of what a star is. For it to fuse deuterium, it has to be about 13 times the mass of Jupiter, and objects in this range are called brown dwarves. So, it's not like just a little bit more material would make Jupiter a star.