R136a1 is Largest Ever Star Discovered

R136a1 is Largest Star Ever Discovered

www.tgdaily.com

Astronomers have discovered the biggest star ever - more than 300 times the mass of the Sun, and twice as large as the generally accepted limit of 150 solar masses.

(visit the link for the full news article)



[edit on 22-7-2010 by Kratos40]

[edit on 22-7-2010 by Kratos40]

This is an amazing discovery. This star is twice the theoretical limit of what an upper limit star should be. The new term being used for such a discovery is "Hypergiant". A new term has been coined as of 07/21/10.

en.wikipedia.org...

The previous biggest was VY Canis Majoris as seen here:

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/7be74a64e5aa.png[/atsimg]

This new finding doubles the size of such a giant. And is now labeled as "O" according to the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram:

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/fc1753238cc3.png[/atsimg]

We live in a scary but yet amazing universe...


www.tgdaily.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

.... That's gonna be one hell of a sight to see when it dies!

Wonder what the lifespan of it is? A million or a few million years? less?

It's not the largest star!

It's the most MASSIVE.

It has more mass than any currently known star but VY Canis Majoris is still larger. It's like comparing a stone to a balloon - the small one is heavier than the big one. It's the same for R136a1 and VY respectively.

Don't confuse "Massive" with "Big".


To put it in proportion R136a1 is about 320 times as heavy as our sun and around 30 times the size. VY Canis Majoris is only about 15 to 25 times as heavy as our sun but between 1800 and 2100 the diameter of our sun.

R1's diameter is approx 4,872,000 kilometres, weighing in at approx 15.8 x 10^26 kilograms.
VY's diameter is approx 2,700,000,000 kilometres, weighing in at approx 1.19 x 10^26 kilograms.

The awesome differences are jarring I think.

[edit on 22-7-2010 by Welfhard]

reply to post by Republican08


According to the article it is already half-way through its life and has already shed 1/3 to 1/2 its mass. It is literally a flash in the pan when it comes to the lifespan of stars.

reply to post by Welfhard


Ah yes, it is all about semantics. But you are correct. But at these incomprehensible scales of size, does it really matter?

reply to post by Kratos40


When we're talking "largest ever" star, then yes the difference between mass and size does matter especially when the actual largest known is 554 times larger than the one this thread is about. If measurements on this scale are so incomprehensibly big that it doesn't matter, then talking about the biggest or the heaviest stars is pretty pointless.

[edit on 24-7-2010 by Welfhard]

Yea the big one you posed is still the biggest, this is simply massive. Which would cause considerable loss of volume. More likely it was spinning slower when it formed.

S+F

I never really dug up about the celestial guiness book of records. A star that massive is really impressive. By curiosity, does anyone have the knowledge to compare the mass of the star to the mass of a small black hole?

Thanks for the post!

reply to post by gagol


The following article may explain how to measure the mass of Black Holes and thus comparisons could be made against hyper-giant stars:

How do you Weigh a Supermassive Black Hole?

I hope this helps.

Cheers...

reply to post by Welfhard


I guess I should have elucidated further the point I was trying to make. Back in my college years, the Astrophysics textbooks of the time described up to Super-Giant stars. Now with the help of more powerful telescopes and better techniques we have now discovered these Hyper-giant stars that in theory should not have existed. To me it just boggles the mind. And lets not even get into the galactic filaments that traverse across the Universe.

Cheers..

Very large, very big, etc. etc. etc.!

reply to post by VrilOrder


Yes. Very incomprehensibly big. Sizes of this order should keep our prides in check, wouldn't you think?

I would find it extremely funny if, one day, scientists "discover" that all of these "extremely accurate" observations are WAY off the mark. I find it ironic that, despite history teaching us that science is mostly wrong on many subjects, scientists still tend to take what they find at face value. If a scientist told you that the mass of your dogs fart was equivalent to that of a boulder, based on his observation of the temperature and speed in which it exited his anus, would you believe him? It's impossible to be "extremely accurate" about these things, and it continues to amuse me that so called "scientists", who should know better, still use these terms. When did "this is how it is" replace "this is an educated guess"? Thats really all any of this is, an educated guess. Educated, maybe, but not necessarily smart, or even right.

reply to post by Kratos40


What a great post!!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks for sharing.

Posts like yours make ATS such a great site to visit.

Wow, what a massive star.

I still love our old Sol best.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/9ca563f4d509.jpg[/atsimg]

[edit on 14-8-2010 by ofhumandescent]

reply to post by Kratos40


Good reply to Welfhard.............don't let this person burst your bubble.

R136a1 is a muck of a big star.

The mass limitation is supposed to be the most massive because any more so and it should - according to the gravitational fusion model - collapse into itself.

I wonder how the fusion model proponents will wangle their way out of this one!! It seems that the harder we look, the better the evidence for the Electrical model, which requires no such upper limit - it will simply fission into 2 once the stresses get too much.

The Star is by far the most massive and has the highest luminosity. Now they will have to rethink the theory of Black Holes.

Thank you for all the replies on this subject. I am a biologist by training and physics does play a VERY small part in what I do. So now we have discovered a new species of Hyper Giant Stars that go against previous calculations. So this is what the Wiki tells us, because after this we have to talk about Black Holes:

en.wikipedia.org..." target="_blank" class="postlink" rel="nofollow">Black hole information paradox

So my next question is, what is the minimum size of a Super or Hyper Giant that can create an even horizon? I ask this in terms of our relative distance to dangerous circumstances in our neighborhood.

Cheers..

Originally posted by Kratos40
Thank you for all the replies on this subject. I am a biologist by training and physics does play a VERY small part in what I do. So now we have discovered a new species of Hyper Giant Stars that go against previous calculations. So this is what the Wiki tells us, because after this we have to talk about Black Holes:

en.wikipedia.org..." target="_blank" class="postlink" rel="nofollow">Black hole information paradox

So my next question is, what is the minimum size of a Super or Hyper Giant that can create an even horizon? I ask this in terms of our relative distance to dangerous circumstances in our neighborhood.

Cheers..

To me the answer is simple: science should deal only in what it can observe. Everything else should be left in the realm of "theoretical", and people reminded that it is only theoretical and not a true framework (encourage people to build a better mousetrap).

If we deal only in observables, then this shows that we can observe stars exceeding the limits placed on them by the mathematics that the theoretical models are derived from. Thus, the theoretical models are wrong, in some way.

Thus, the topic of black holes is no longer worthy of dicussion until direct observation can be made (not some photo that would not pass muster as a UFO photo, showing some lensing artfact).