FRANCE – The Herschel telescope has made a discovery that seemed highly improbable!
The European-built Herschel infrared space observatory has found a star so big that it would dwarf the sun. The discovery has challenged previous ideas about the origins of stars.
The Herschel telescope recently took pictures of large stars from distant galaxies, leading one to be called the “impossibly” big star. According to European scientists, the newborn star looks set to turn into one of the biggest and brightest stars in the galaxy within the next few hundred thousand years. As of right now, it already contains eight to ten times the mass of the sun and is still surrounded by an additional 2000 solar masses of gas and dust from which it can feed further.
While researchers know what the “impossible” star may become, they are clueless as to how it came to be. It was discovered in a star-forming cloud in the Milky Way Galaxy called RCW 120.
“According to our current understanding, you should not be able to form stars larger than eight solar masses,” said Annie Zavagno, of the Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille in France.