A team of astronomers led by Paul Crowther, Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Sheffield, has used ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), as well as archival data from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, to study two young clusters of stars, NGC 3603 and RMC 136a in detail. NGC 3603 is a cosmic factory where stars form frantically from the nebula’s extended clouds of gas and dust, located 22 000 light-years away from the Sun (eso1005). www.eso.org
Using a combination of instruments on ESO’s Very Large
Telescope, astronomers have discovered the most massive stars to date,
some weighing at birth more than 300 times the mass of the Sun, or twice
as much as the currently accepted limit of 150 solar masses. This
artist's impression shows the relative sizes of young stars, from the
smallest “red dwarfs”, weighing in at about 0.1 solar masses, through
low mass “yellow dwarfs” such as the Sun, to massive “blue dwarf” stars
weighing eight times more than the Sun, as well as the 300 solar mass
star named R136a1.
