Biggest, Brightest Star Puzzles AstronomersBy Tariq Malik
Staff Writer
posted: 07:30 am ET
06 January 2004
ATLANTA - A team of researchers has found what appears to be the most luminous known star around, one so massive that it shouldn't have formed in the first place.
The star, known as LBV 1806-20, tips the scales of stellar masses at about 150 times the heft of the Sun. It shines up to 40 million times brighter than the Sun. The previous title-holder called the Pistol Star, is a mere six million times brighter than the Sun and weighs about 100 solar masses.
LBV 1806-20 was known before, but just as a bright blue object in high-powered telescopes. Now it has been examined more closely. Even if it proves to be a binary or triple-star system, and therefore all the mass is not its own, it would still be behemoth, astronomers said here yesterday at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society.
"It's definitely not a cluster of stars, we can rule that out completely," explained Stephen Eikenberry, who led a team of researchers that studied the star. "It could be part of a binary or triple system, though it seems unlikely."
Light from LBV 1806-20 undergoes periodic variations that seem specific to a one-body object, Eikenberry said. If it is eventually found to be a binary or triple-star system, it would be even more confusing, since astronomers would have to explain how these massive stars manage to exist so close together, he said.
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