Scientists find most massive star ever discovered
Scientists have indentified the star R136a1 -- thought to be the heaviest star ever discovered, hundreds of times more massive than the sun -- Wednesday after working out its weight for the first time. This montage shows a visible-light image of the Tarantula nebula (left) along with a zoomed-in visible-light image from the Very Large Telescope (middle). A new image of the R136 cluster, obtained with the Very Large Telescope is shown in the right-hand panel, with the cluster itself at the lower right.
This artist's impression shows the relative sizes of young stars, from the smallest "red dwarfs", weighing in at about 0.1 solar masses, through low mass "yellow dwarfs" such as the Sun, to massive “blue dwarf” stars weighing eight times more than the Sun, as well as the 300 solar mass star named R136a1.
Scientists have indentified the star R136a1 -- thought to be the heaviest star ever discovered, hundreds of times more massive than the sun -- Wednesday after working out its weight for the first time. This montage shows a visible-light image of the Tarantula nebula (left) along with a zoomed-in visible-light image from the Very Large Telescope (middle). A new image of the R136 cluster, obtained with the Very Large Telescope is shown in the right-hand panel, with the cluster itself at the lower right.
This artist's impression shows the relative sizes of young stars, from the smallest "red dwarfs", weighing in at about 0.1 solar masses, through low mass "yellow dwarfs" such as the Sun, to massive “blue dwarf” stars weighing eight times more than the Sun, as well as the 300 solar mass star named R136a1.
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