The Biggest Star Ever Found Just Revealed A Surprising New Insight
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Loading... - Alden Murray
- 24 Aug 2022
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The sharpest images ever taken of the biggest known star indicate the upper limit to a sun's mass is probably a lot smaller than previous estimates.
The star R136a1 was initially measured at around 250 to 320 times the mass of our own Sun. The new estimate places it between 150 and 230 times the mass of the Sun.
This new ballpark figure of just under 200 solar masses still makes the star a heavyweight record holder, but the downward revision of its mass could have deeper implications.
The work was part of a project to understand the cluster in which it resides, called R136. It sits in the Tarantula Nebula, a hotbed of star formation in a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way called the Large Magellanic Cloud.
This cluster happens to contain some of the most massive stars known; masses that also have now been revised downwards. Since these masses are critical anchor points for the upper mass function of massive stars, the work could mean that our previous stellar upper mass limits are wrong. Read More…
