Objects in the universe

I dare to say it's one of the most intriguing universe discoveries after blackholes!
After comming across that news i went to check the month date to see if it was already april 1 (i often loose track on what day of the month is...i guess all man do ;) ) Half of me just couldn't believe that, first reaction was, 'this feels like a prank!...'.
 
if stars this large are possible, does that mean that if they have planetary objects, they would be similarly huge? And if so, why dont we have an easier time of detecting them?

epic

Joining in a bit late here... Anyway, please correct me if I'm wrong here: I believe planets a couple of times bigger than Jupiter will have enough mass to ignite and turn into stars. I vaguely remember the term "critical mass" from school, and that critical point would be what limits the seize a planet can have. If it's bigger it will become a star.
 
If I remember correctly, the range of masses, and thus object type, goes as follows:

Gas giant planet - less than 1% solar mass (Jupiter is 0.1% the mass of the Sun)
Brown dwarf - 1% to 8% solar mass
Red dwarf - 8% solar mass upwards

I do recall that the boundary between gas giant and brown dwarf, in terms of required mass, is somewhat fuzzy as I think there is evidence that not all brown dwarf examples have demonstrated deuterium fusion.
 
How the hell can a planet turn into a star? That's garbage physics. It makes no sense and I'm not even an expert on physics.

Once the mass is big enough the preassure from it starts the nuclear fusion process - volià, a star is born!
 
To start nuclear fusion, a star needs to have a certain amount of mass to attain the required temperature and pressure at its core. Thus, the way to turn a planet into a star is to add more mass (a lot more mass).
 
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