Often, we call the stages of a star its “life cycle”, and I’ve been thinking about this for a bit.

Stars meet many of the requirements for living organisms: they can consume matter, they can react to stimuli (sort of, does gravity count? e.g. binary systems), they can reproduce (they expel gas clouds on death that can eventually create new stars), they can grow and change size over their lifespan, and they maintain equilibrium (between gravity and radiation pressure from fusion)

What stops stars from being considered living objects?

  • frongt@lemmy.zip
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    1 day ago

    They don’t react to stimuli like gravity any more than a completely inanimate object.

    They also don’t reproduce. Dying and reforming is not reproduction. I’m not aware of anything already considered living that will die and reanimate.

    • Lucy [she/faer]@mander.xyz
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      13 hours ago

      I’m not aware of anything already considered living that will die and reanimate.

      Tardigrades? They can cease any metabolic activity and then wake up years later as if nothing happened.

      • sbeak@sopuli.xyzOP
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        6 hours ago

        But that isn’t really reproduction, and not comparable to the death of a star