Telescope “Hubble” discovered a galaxy of stars, monsters – Express-News

20.03

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c Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope discovered nine stars in the star cluster R136. The weight of each star about a hundred times higher than the mass of the sun, RNS transmits with reference to NASA message. R136 Cluster lies about 170 thousand. Light-years from Earth in the Tarantula Nebula. According to the researchers, the objects found in 30 million times brighter than the Sun and can be considered the largest group of heavy stars of those that are now known to science.

Previously, it was already known about the four giants, including the famous giant R136a1, which is 265 times more massive, and 10 million times brighter than the sun. But thanks to new studies have found more giant objects on 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 observe about two dozen stars with a mass greater than the sun in 100 times. At the same time, 9 of them are located in an area with a diameter of only a few light-years, “-soobschil in an interview with BBC News Online Professor Paul Crowther of the University of Sheffield. – “But I will tell you more, two dozen stars of this type – it’s probably more than in the whole of our galaxy».

The incredible results of the study will be published soon in the «Monthly Notices of the Royal Journal Astronomical Society ». They are based on earlier studies conducted in 2010, when he first was discovered R136a1 and is by far the most massive and the brightest star that ever was found by astronomers.

In the previous study used data collected mainly by a terrestrial telescope located in Chile. The new observations, scientists carried out with the help of space telescope “Hubble”, which has a higher resolution and is sensitive to ultraviolet radiation. This allowed us to obtain more details.

Let’s remind, in 2010, experts saw a 4-star monster, including R136a1 in the center of the Large Magellanic Cloud. But thanks to the “Hubble” they were able to find 5 more.

The stars were not only very heavy, but also very bright. Joint brightness of the nine stars 30 million times higher than that of our Sun, said Crowther.

Researchers, of course, the question arises why this corner of space, located in the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud, collected so gigantic cosmic bodies. According to Crowther, it was because there was a strong compression of gas and dust that while the Large Magellanic Cloud keeps flowing edge of the Milky Way.

But one thing we can say for sure – none of these stars, monsters will not remain in “live” within a few million years. The reason lies in their weight and brightness: bright burning so can not last long, because in such cases, the material will be consumed faster.

«Many of giant stars form a couple, and when they die, they produce black holes which will be merged. And when there is such a process, there are gravitational waves “, – added the professor, -” With their help future generations of scientists will learn a lot about space. That which is not available today astronomer. »