Waspie_Dwarf Posted March 17, 2016 #1 Share Posted March 17, 2016 Hubble unveils monster stars Astronomers using the unique ultraviolet capabilities of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have identified nine monster stars with masses over 100 times the mass of the Sun in the star cluster R136. This makes it the largest sample of very massive stars identified to date. The results, which will be published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, raise many new questions about the formation of massive stars.An international team of scientists using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has combined images taken with the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) with the unprecedented ultraviolet spatial resolution of the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) to successfully dissect the young star cluster R136 in the ultraviolet for the first time. Source 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGreatBeliever Posted March 22, 2016 #2 Share Posted March 22, 2016 Wonder if their telescope can see what's on the planets.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeastieRunner Posted March 22, 2016 #3 Share Posted March 22, 2016 Wonder if their telescope can see what's on the planets.. Wonder if their telescope can see what's on the planets.. Wonder if their telescope can see what's on the planets.. Just the atmosphere (to a degree). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paperdyer Posted March 22, 2016 #4 Share Posted March 22, 2016 Why do you think the solar masses are planets? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TOG Posted March 23, 2016 #5 Share Posted March 23, 2016 Wonder if their telescope can see what's on the planets.. The cluster is only a few light years across and home to more than a dozen 50Ms plus stars and 9 that are over 100x the Sun's mass. Any planets that could survive the tidal forces would be completely sterile from the ionizing radiation alone. I'm betting all but the most massive would have had their atmosphere's stripped by radiation pressure as well. Ima gonna go run some simulations, and I'll get back to you in a week or so. Until then, I'm going to say there will be a few Mercury's in highly eccentric orbits at great distances from their host stars, and maybe a lucky gas giant or two. Not a very hospitable corner of the universe.... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coolguy Posted March 24, 2016 #6 Share Posted March 24, 2016 What a find very cool im sure more of these massive stars are out there Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Codenwarra Posted March 25, 2016 #7 Share Posted March 25, 2016 Here's Prof Crowther talking about a similar cluster in the Milky Way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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