Posted: Tue May 01, 2007 1:52 pm
Wiki Article
'Star 100-150x's the Mass of our sun resembles 'A Space Explosion'
Wikipedia -- (η Carinae or η Car) is a highly luminous hypergiant star. Estimates of its mass range from 100“150 times the mass of the Sun, and its luminosity is about four million times that of the Sun.
This object is currently the most massive star that can be studied in great detail. Several other known stars may be more luminous and more massive, but data on them is far less robust. (Caveat: Since examples such as the Pistol Star have been demoted by improved data, one should be skeptical of most available lists of "most massive stars." As of late 2006, Eta Car still has the highest confirmed luminosity, based on data across a broad range of wavelengths.) Stars with more than 100 times the mass of the Sun produce more than a million times as much light as the Sun. They are quite rare”only a few dozen in a galaxy as big as ours”and they flirt with disaster near the Eddington limit, i.e., the outward pressure of their radiation is almost strong enough to counteract gravity. Stars that are more than 120 solar masses exceed the theoretical Eddington limit, and their gravity is barely strong enough to hold in its radiation and gas, resulting in a possible supernova or hypernova in the near future.
Source: http://tinyurl.com/35pjwo
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