°
find researchers in the Milky Way extremely luminous celestial body
The brightest star in the Milky Way has some competition: German astronomers have in a nebula near the center of our galaxy has a Stern agreed that emits about 3.2 million times as much energy as our sun. This is due to its dimensions and color provisionally called Peony nebula star celestial body slightly below the brightness of the record holder Eta Carina, but such brightness measurements so inaccurate that he definitely still could move up to the top. The brightness the Peony nebula star, astronomers at the University of Potsdam Lidia Oskinova with measurement data of the Spitzer Space Telescope calculated, stated the U.S. space agency NASA, the Spitzer maintains.
The researchers trained the Spitzer Space Telescope and other telescopes of the European Southern Observatory in Chile in the Peony nebula in the constellation Sagittarius. Infrared light penetrates the fog, in contrast to visible light, so that they could smoke in the hidden star investigate further. From the intense emissions, comparable to the solar wind, they were supposed to close the brightness of 3.2 million suns. The record holder Eta Carinae in the constellation keel in the southern sky lies with the 4.7-million-fold solar emission slightly above.
The researchers are interested not so much of who holds the record or break, but how these stars can exist. Both stars belong to the so-called Wolf-Rayet stars, blue giants, take the 100 to 200 solar masses on the scale. The Pentecostal rust-nebula has a diameter of 100 times the sun. The researchers estimate that it will not be very old. In a few million years it will be life as a star explosion, called a supernova exhale.
already achieved the threat it solar wind speeds of over one million kilometers per hour. Only with a more refined model of the particle current, the researchers could interpret the observations of the star more reliable. The particle is believed to explain the cause for the surrounding nebula, the researchers said.
ddp / wissenschaft.de - Martin Shepherd
statement of NASA
17.07.2008 - Astronomy
For more information:
http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/spitzer
and
http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer
