Of giant, and more modest, stars

The discovery of the most massive star ever observed makes the BBC’s, and other’s, headlines.  Identified by astronomers using a combination of new observations on ESO’s Very Large Telescope facility in Chile and data gathered previously with the Hubble Space Telescope, R136a1 has a mass about 265 times that of our own Sun.  Image credits ESO/P. Crowther/C.J. Evans. It’s sited in a cluster known as RMC 136a, in the Large Magellanic Cloud, 165,000 light-years away.  From the BBC report Many objects in the very first population of stars to shine …

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