Walter Watts
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virus: BIGGEST AND BRIGHTEST:
« on: 2004-04-04 01:50:03 » |
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BRIEF
ASTRONOMY
BIGGEST AND BRIGHTEST:
The star LBV 1806-20
could swallow at least eight million suns
.
A Super Superstar
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The Palomar telescope has spied what appears
to be the brightest star yet known, a giant so
oversized that it defies current theories. The
star LBV 1806-20 shines up to 40 million times
brighter than the sun. The previous record
holder, the Pistol Star, was just roughly six million
times as bright. Some 45,000 light-years
from Earth, LBV 1806-20 weighs about 150
times as much as the sun, although present theory
holds that stars of more than 120 solar
masses could not coalesce, because their nuclear
fires should burn off the excess. The
colossus is surrounded by what the astronomers call “a zoo of freak
stars,” such as a rare
magnetic neutron star. Rather than collapsing under their own gravity,
LBV 1806-20 and
its freaky neighbors may have formed when a supernova shock wave crushed
a nearby molecular cloud into stars. The scientists presented their
findings at the January meeting of the American Astronomical Society.
—Charles Choi
--
Walter Watts
Tulsa Network Solutions, Inc.
"Pursue the small utopias... nature, music, friendship, love"
--Kupferberg--
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