Star with a mass 320 times greater than that of the Sun

2010/07/22 Aulestiarte Lete, Izaro - Elhuyar Zientziaren Komunikazioa

• Astronomia

A group of European astronomers have just detected the most massive stars known so far. One of them has announced that since its birth it has a mass 320 times greater than that of the Sun. And in that sense, the discovery has broken any mark, since the heaviest stars found so far had a mass 150 times greater than the Sun. In addition to the largest, it is the brightest, ten million times brighter than the Sun. Those with these characteristics are called blue supergiant stars.

The discovery was made possible by ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) and NASA's Hubble Telescope archive. Astronomers have explained that the set of stars NGC 3603 and RMC 136a have been able to observe it closely.

Well, the largest star that has been detected (called R136a1) has been found in the R136 star set. It is a set of hot, young and massive stars. It is located within the Tarantula Nebula, in a galaxy close to the Milky Way, the Great Magellanic Cloud (165,000 light-years).

One of the astronomers explained that “unlike humans, massive stars are born very heavy and lose weight as they progress years. With just over a million years, R136a1 is now middle-aged as it has lost a lot of weight. We could say that it has lost a fifth of its initial mass, or more than 50 solar masses. However, the mass remains 265 times greater than that of the Sun.”

Image courtesy of: ESO/P. Crowther/C.J. Evans.