[Verginius Rufus]

Stars come in a variety of colors and sizes--red giants are vastly larger than the sun (some are so large that the earth's orbit would be inside the star if it were located where the sun is) and white dwarfs (like the companion of Sirius) are much smaller than the sun.

If this planet is orbiting at one-fortieth Mercury's distance from the sun, it would be less than a million miles from its star's surface.

[Moltke]

OK, I referred to the narrower definition of “star” - not the pre (gas cloud) and post (where its fuel is spent and it turns into a red giant, brown dwarf, neutron star, black hole, goes all supernova on ya, etc.) states.

So sue me. ;-)