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Stars Have a Weight Limit

Posted by timothy on from the or-they-can't-wrestle dept.

Mike writes "Using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers made the first direct measurement within our Milky Way Galaxy, and concluded stars cannot get any larger than about 150 times the mass of our sun. The astronomers used the Hubble to probe the Arches cluster, the densest in our galaxy. This finding takes astronomers closer to understanding the complex star formation process. It also gives the strongest backing yet to the notion stars have a weight limit."

1 of 83 comments (clear)

  1. Re:150 solar mass -- not a hard limit by wanerious · · Score: 4, Informative
    Those are excellent questions:

    a) Lower limits are roughly 1/20 solar mass. Less mass than this can't product the temperatures and densities needed for hydrogen fusion.

    b) roughly the population dies off as M^{-2.5}, with some hard cut-off at high and low mass. There are many more low- than high-mass stars.

    c) Age goes roughly as M^{-3.5} or so. High mass stars don't live very long at all.

    d) Yes! Not only energy output, but elemental abundance evolution. That was my thesis.