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Scientists Discover Biggest Star
Hugh Pickens writes "Scientists at the University of Sheffield have discovered the most massive stellar giant, R136a1 measured at 265 solar masses, using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile and data from the Hubble Space Telescope. It's in the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small 'satellite' galaxy which orbits the Milky Way. Previously, the heaviest known stars were around 150 times the mass of the Sun, known as the 'Eddington Limit,' and this was believed to be close to the cosmic size limit because as stars get larger, the amount of energy created in their cores grows faster than the force of gravity which holds them together. 'Because of their proximity to the Eddington Limit they lose mass at a pretty high rate,' says Professor Paul Crowther, the chief researcher in the Sheffield team. Hyper-stars like R136a1 are believed to be formed from several young stars merging together, and are only found in the very heart of stellar clusters. R136a1 is believed to have a surface temperature of more than 40,000 degrees Celsius, and is 10 million times brighter than the Sun. Crowther adds that R136a1 is about as big as stars can get. 'Owing to the rarity of these monsters, I think it is unlikely that this new record will be broken any time soon.'"
"Owing to the rarity of these monsters, I think it is unlikely that this new record will be broken any time soon.""
Owing to the size of the universe, I think it is likely that this new record will be broken sometime soon.
Two theories, now let's sit back and see who's right!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Anyone could find something if it's that big! Wake me up when they find the smallest one! :p
Clearly obesity is not just a problem on earth.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
One thing the article didn't mention was the radius of the new star. It's obviously larger than the sun, but is it the "largest" star found or simply the most massive? It seems with that kind of mass it might be denser than your average supergiant and have less volume, and therefore less radius.
For anyone curious, as I was, what the surface temperature of our star is: 5500 degrees C
My source was NASA's world book page (then again, it goes on to state that our solar system has nine planets, so trust NASA at your own risk)
If I had a nickel for every time I had a nickel, I'd be richcursive!
I puzzled over this for a bit too, but this newly discovered star is the most massive discovered. The largest known star in terms of size is still VY Canis Majoris at ~2000 solar radii, but only ~20 times the mass of the Sun.
she breaks the Eddington limit! (sorry, couldn't help myself)
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
Here is the link to the research paper: http://arxiv.org/abs/1007.3284
The article states that R136a1 is 265 solar masses, however it doesn't say how big it is.
VY Canis Majoris is 2,100 times the size of the sun, and 230,000 times the size of Earth. It is so huge, that if it occupied the centre of our solar system, its boundaries would be Saturn's orbit.
If R136a1 is the heaviest star, then it must be considerably more dense than VY Canis Majoris, but I find the latter to be far more impressive.
Just you wait until some committee somewhere out there decides that the sun is too small and inconsequential to be classed as a real star. If it happened to Pluto...
How do they measure that? As an amateur astronomer, I understand relative magnitude but...wow. I'm guessing they use some other method? Also, would this star be considered a super-massive blue giant or...?
I need that in units I can comprehend:
The mass of the sun is 1.99x10^30kg. The average mass of a book is 340g. There are 21,814,555 books cataloged by the Library of Congress. So, 265 solar masses * 1.99x10^30kg/solar mass * 1000g/kg / 340g/book / 21,814,555 books/LoC = 7.1x10^25LoC. Therefore, the new star is equivalent in mass to 71YLoC (yotta Libraries Of Congress). Wow, that's a big star!
256 solar masses should be enough for anyone.
From article: "Unlike humans, these stars are born heavy and lose weight as they age," Crowther said.
This is obviously wrong. Some humans are plump when young, and turn into skeletons as they age.
In fact, this is commonly observed among those humans who, ironically, are called ``stars''.
Here is a posting on Science Magazine's ScienceNow, and here is the original journal article originally published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomy Society. I think it is always better, when possible to refer to original sources when talking about scientific issues. Scientific discussions can become muddled when translated by journalists.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
then again, it goes on to state that our solar system has nine planets, so trust NASA at your own risk
Argh, this nonsense again. The IAU dropped the ball and we remain without an adequate definition of what a planet is. "Clearing the neighborhood" remains undefined and there are ways to define "neighborhood", as a large loci in space-time around the trajectory of the object in question, so that Pluto, and perhaps even Ceres and some of the dwarf planet candidates, clear their neighborhoods. The point here is that while a considerable number of astronomers intend a particular definition of "neighborhood" (as a spherical shell around the Sun), that definition has not been adopted nor, I might add, does it seem all that useful.
Semantically, it's also a mess since we have "minor planets" and now "dwarf planets" which are not "planets". Also, it just confuses the issue for the billions of people who were taught for decades that Pluto was a planet. I find the redefinition of "planet" to be inconsiderate of their needs and as a result rather frivilous abuse of IAU's power. Just because we had a similar screw up back when Ceres was demoted as a planet, doesn't mean that we need to repeat this error.
Finally, this definition only applies to the Solar System. We'd have enormous difficult applying this definition anywhere else. It would be hard and time consuming to verify the dynamics of other star systems in enough detail to distinguish between planets and dwarf planets using such a definition. And those systems may have orbital dynamics that are far different from the nearly circular orbits of planets in the Solar System.
Personally, I have no problems with eight, nine, or hundreds of planets. But I think it reasonable that the definition of planet have a scientific basis. That bit is the common view I share with the people who came up with the current definition. But I think it's been an embarrassment to come up with the current weak and unuseful definition and then attempt to sell it as being scientific (remember the old definition happens to be much more well-defined and hence, scientific than the new one, people were just concerned about the growing number of objects that would be considered planets).
Personally, I find it more credible that we're just seeing a continuation (in intellectually mutated form) of the old, irrational opposition to Pluto's original naming. Its first two letters, "P" and "L" happen to be, either by coincidence or artifice, the initials of Percival Lowell, the man who had established and funded the observatory that discovered Pluto.
If a really freakin' huge star is created in the universe and no one is around to observe it, does it break a record?
That one's easy, as there are no unrecorded records, by definition. The real question is, lacking any observation, does it even exist, or does it just probably exist, or "exist" in an undetermined state until observed? And what counts as "observation"?
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."