Hubble Space Telescope Finds Group Of Nine Massive Stars 30 MILLION Times Brighter Than Sun
British astronomers have found a group of nine massive stars 30 million times brighter than the Sun using the famous Hubble Space Telescope.
The star cluster, which is an epic 170,000 light years from Earth, is the largest group of stars of this size identified so far.
The find was made by an international team, led by astronomers from Sheffield University.
The discovery raises many new questions about the formation of massive stars and also highlights the continuing capabilities of the ageing Hubble Space Telescope.
The star cluster - named R136 - is only a few light years across and is in the Tarantula Nebula within the Large Magellanic Cloud - a satellite galaxy of our own Milky Way.
The newly discovered stars are 30 million times brighter than the Sun (NASA, ESA, P Crowther (University of Sheffield)/PA Wire)
It includes nine monster stars which are more than 100 times the mass of the Sun.
None of the stars identified have unseated R126a1, also in the Tarantula Nebula, as the most massive star in the known universe at more than 250 solar masses.
Scientists are continuing to analyse the Hubble data, which could contribute to the study of gravitational waves - the ripples in space time which were predicted by Albert Einstein and became worldwide news last month when researchers confirmed their existence.
Image credit: NASA, ESA, P Crowther (University of Sheffield)/PA Wire
