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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.
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''.
I'm guessing that what it probably means is that this star is estimated at having ten million times the power output compared to the Sun. Therefore, at some fixed reference distance, it would deliver ten million times more watts of illumination per square meter. This doesn't mean that the surface brightness is ten million times greater than that of the Sun, because some of the brightness comes from the greater size of the star. If you make a lamp with one hundred light bulbs, they are not individually brighter than a single light bulb, but as an aggregate, they provide more illumination, and can be more easily seen from farther away.
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.