Scientists Discover Star 300 Times More Massive Than The Sun [Space]

Astronomers have identified essentially the most massive stars known. These objects are millions of times brighter than our Sun and the biggest of them all is a whoppin\’ 300 times the mass of our favorite star.

The stars were discovered in two clusters-NGC 3603 and RMC 136a-and researchers used a \” combination of instruments on the eu Southern Observatory\’s Very Large Telescope, besides archival data from the Hubble Space Telescope, to review the stellar nurseries.\” With this mix of tools, they were in a position to discover some almost scary details about R136a1, probably the most massive of the celebrities:

Its current mass is approximately 265 solar masses, and its estimated birth weight was as much as 320 times that of our sun. R136a1 also has the very best luminosity of any star found up to now – nearly 10 million times greater than the sun.

I can almost feel my skin turning red just reading that. [Space]

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