STARS What would happen if two stars collided?
Collisions between stars are typically very rare because the empty space between stars is huge compared to the size of stars themselves – you could fit 30 million Suns side by side in the distance to our nearest star. However, in the centres of dense star clusters collisions are more probable. Collision results in a more massive star that appears hotter and younger than those of the cluster, and so collisions are the favoured method for creating so-called blue straggler stars.
After the collision, the star will live its life in a fairly typical fashion. In addition to collisions, star ‘mergers’ are very important in the universe, and happen much
