Phew, what a scorcher: Record-breaking star is 256 times larger than the Sun

by Steven Mostyn - Jul 21 2010, 13:40

Scientists gazing deep into the universe have been left slack-jawed after discovering a record-breaking monster of a star that’s 256 times bigger than our own and burns with an intensity that’s around 10 million times brighter.

Located in a neighbouring irregular galaxy called the Large Magellanic Cloud, the star in question (named ‘R136a1’) was discovered using a combination of the European Southern Observatory’s aptly named Very Large Telescope in Chile, and archive data from NASA’s orbiting Hubble Space Telescope.

According to the UK-led team responsible for tagging R136a1, the star is “middle- aged” and has thus far lost around 20 percent of its original mass since forming over a million years ago – meaning it was originally around 320 times bigger than our Sun.

“Owing to the rarity of these monsters, it is unlikely that this new record will be broken any time soon,” commented team leader and University of Sheffield academic Professor Paul Crowther to Astronomy Now.

Other interesting titbits about R136a1 include: it’s approximately 165,000 light years from Earth; it has a surface temperature in excess of 40,000 degrees Celsius; it has officially overtaken VY Canis Majoris (a Red Hypergiant) as the universe’s leading heavyweight, and Prof. Crowther believes it possibly formed following the merging of several protostars.

The team’s findings are to be published in the Monthly Notices journal of the Royal Astronomical Society.

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