In this undated photo montage released by European Southern Observatory Wednesday July 21 2010, of the star R136a1 thought to be the heaviest star ever discovered, hundreds of times more massive than the sun, scientists said Wednesday after working out its weight for the first time. Those behind the find say the star, called R136a1, may once have weighed as much as 320 solar masses. Astrophysicist Paul Crowther said the obese star twice as heavy as any previously discovered has already slimmed down considerably over its lifetime. In fact it's burning itself off with such intensity that it shines with nearly 10 million times the luminosity of the sun. "Unlike humans, these stars are born heavy and lose weight as they age," said Crowther, an astrophysicist at the University of Sheffield in northern England. This montage shows a visible-light image of the Tarantula nebula as seen with the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope (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 near-infrared MAD adaptive optics instrument on the Very Large Telescope is shown in the right-hand panel, with the cluster itself at the lower right. The MAD image provides unique details on the stellar content of the cluster.
Scientists Discover Monster Star (21st July 2010)
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