Telescope “Hubble” spotted gathering of space monsters – BBC Russian

Jonathan Amos Correspondent Bi-bi-si on Science

Image copyright PA

Image caption Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud has become a “factory” for the production of cosmic giants

Space telescope “Hubble” discovered a cluster of giant stars, located in the neighborhood of our galaxy at a distance of about 170 thousand light-years from Earth.

Researchers have identified about two dozen “cosmic behemoths” – they surpass the Sun mass hundreds of times

Four of them were already known to science -. including the famous hypergiants weight of 265 of our suns, its outstanding catalog of celestial objects like R136a1

But it turned out that this part of the sky in the Large Magellanic Cloud -. dwarf galaxy, located next door to ours – populated much more tightly than scientists believed

.

“at some tiny part of the satellite of the Milky Way, we see as many as two dozen stars in more than one hundred times more massive than the Sun, nine of which are located at a distance of several light years away from each other,” – said the BBC BBC professor Paul Crowther of the University of Sheffield

. “in this case, two dozen stars of this type – it’s probably more than in the entire Milky Way,” – he explained

close to the limit

The results of observations to be published soon in the monthly magazine of the Royal astronomical society.

They are based on earlier studies conducted in 2010, when he first was discovered and described the blue giant R136a1 -. the most massive and brightest of the currently known stars

Image copyright NASA ESA KA Bostroem

Image caption Here is the light of the bright stars in the ultraviolet radiation

If the research were used data mostly obtained by ground-based telescope in Chile.

the following observations were made using the space telescope “Hubble”, having a high resolution and sensitivity to ultraviolet radiation, which allowed us to obtain more detailed results.

in 2010, astronomers found in the center of the Large Magellanic Cloud four Star-monster, including R136a1. Thanks to the “Hubble” were found five giants.

These stars are not only very heavy, but also very bright. The total brightness of the nine star – 30 million times higher than that of the Sun, says Professor Crowther

“Due to the fact that they are so massive, they are close to the so-called Eddington luminosity -. Of which allows the star to have a maximum radiation before it begins itself to tear apart “- an astronomer says

.” Therefore, they emit a fairly strong winds: the mass of a gaseous substance, which they throw into space, on a monthly basis can reach the Earth’s mass, “- he added

life giants short

the question arises: why this corner of space, located in the Tarantula nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud, collected in itself so many giants.

Image copyright SXS

Image caption giant stars may eventually turn into a black hole, the merger which will cause strong gravitational waves

Professor Crowther says the reason for this – a strong compression of gas and interstellar dust, which was published as the large Magellanic Cloud keeps flowing edge of the Milky Way

one thing is for sure -. a few million years there will not be one of these stellar monsters . To burn so brightly, it is necessary to burn rapidly

“Many of these stars form a pair, and when finished the course of life, they become black holes will merge and produce gravitational waves in the future”, -. Says scholar.

The source of gravitational waves, which a month ago for the first time recorded a laser gravitational-wave observatory in the USA (LIGO), was the merger of two black holes is 30 solar masses each. It is very likely that these black holes have become the final stage of the evolution of massive stars – like those found telescope “Hubble”

.