Pair of
68. mammoth stars
The image shows a pair of colossal stars, WR 25 and Tr16-244, located
within the open cluster Trumpler 16. This cluster is embedded within
the Carina Nebula, an immense cauldron of gas and dust that lies
approximately 7500 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Carina,
the Keel. WR 25 is the brightest, situated near the centre of the image.
The neighbouring Tr16-244 is the third brightest, just to the upper left
of WR 25. The second brightest, to the left of WR 25, is a low mass star
located much closer to the Earth than the Carina Nebula.
Credit: NASA, ESA and Jesús Maíz Apellániz (Instituto de Astrofísica de
Andalucía, Spain)
“The most fascinating things we are learning from Hubble in my
area of expertise is the study of the most massive stars. These stars
are very rare and have very short lives, astronomically speaking,
‘just a few million years’. This is because they are extremely bright,
up to a million times brighter than our own star the Sun, which
means that they quickly consume all their fuel.
“Their fuel consists of hydrogen at first, which they burn into helium
and later carbon and oxygen and heavier elements. These are
the elements that we ourselves are made of. The oxygen you
breath while reading this was ones made in the deep interior of
a massive star. Even the tissues that make up your muscles and
bones was ones star dust created when a massive star died and
exploded.
“One of the big questions astronomers try to answer is how
massive is the most massive star. This is a surprisingly hard question
to answer. The theoretical models do not give a clear answer.
“The only way to answer this questions is with observations.
Unfortunately massive stars live in very crowded regions and
they shine most of their light in the ultra violet which is blocked
by our atmosphere. Here is were the Hubble Telescope made a
major difference. Being in space above the atmosphere it can
freely observe in colors that are inaccessible from the ground. In
addition the superb resolution allows us to look into the centers of
some of the densest star clusters.”
— Dr. Selma E. de Mink
Assistant Professor
University of Amsterdam
Netherlands