Telescope “Hubble” discovered a giant cluster of stars R136, located at a distance of about 170 thousand light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Astronomers have identified about two dozen cosmic “hippos”, and they surpass the Sun mass hundreds of times.
Four of them have been known in the past, including the famous giant R136a1 (it is 265 times more massive, and its brightness is greater than the sun to 10 million times). But a new study has indicated that more giant objects in this area of the sky. Note that we are talking about the dwarf galaxy, a satellite of the Milky Way at a distance of about 50 kpc from our galaxy.
“In a tiny part of the satellite galaxy we see about two dozen stars with a mass greater than the sun in . 100 And just nine of them are located in an area with a diameter of only a few light-years “, – he says in an interview with BBC News Online professor Paul Crowther (Paul Crowther) from the University of Sheffield. – Moreover, the two dozen stars of this type -. It’s probably more than in the whole of our galaxy “
The results will be published soon in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society They rely on. earlier studies, conducted in 2010, when he first was described R136a1 -. the most massive and the brightest star that ever was found by astronomers
in the previous study used data collected mainly through land telescope in Chile. The new observations, scientists carried out with the help of space telescope “Hubble”, which has a high resolution and is sensitive to UV light. This allowed us to obtain more details.
So, in 2010, experts saw four stars -monstra including R136a1 in the center of the Large Magellanic Cloud. but thanks to the “Hubble” they were able to find five more.
The stars are not only extremely massive, and incredibly bright. Joint brightness of the nine stars 30 million times higher than that of our Sun, said Crowther.
scientists have, of course, the question arises why this corner of space, located in the Tarantula nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud, the giants gathered as much. According to Crowther, it was because there was a strong compression of the gas and dust that while the Large Magellanic Cloud keeps flowing edge of the Milky Way
But one thing is for sure -. None of these stars, monsters will not remain “live” within a few million years. The reason for all in the same mass and brightness: so bright burning will not last long (material consumed faster)
“Many of these stars form a couple, and when they die, they produce a black hole that will be merged. . And when there is such a process, there are gravitational waves, “- adds professor
With their help future generations of scientists will learn a lot about space.. That which is not available to astronomers today.
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