Star points on smooth hypersurfaces

— A point P on a smooth hypersurface X of degree d in PN is called a star point if and only if the intersection of X with the embedded tangent space TP (X) is a cone with vertex P . This notion is a generalization of total inflection points on plane curves and Eckardt points on smooth cubic surfaces in P3. We generalize results on the configuration space of total inflection points on plane curves to star points. We give a detailed description of the configuration space for hypersurfaces with two or three star points. We investigate collinear star points and we prove that the number of star points on a smooth hypersurface