New Star Contender
September 15th 2008 05:27
A new contender for the title of brightest sun in our galaxy the Milky Way has been discovered in the dusty and highly populated part of the galaxy's center.
Named the "Peony nebula star," the bright stellar beacon was revealed by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and other ground-based telescopes. It outshines our Sun with the light of an estimated 3.2 million suns. These stars emit a tremendous amount of light that make our poor old Sun look very like a puny light bulb.
The current reigning "brightest star" champion is Eta Carina,( the keel of the mythological Argonaut's ship) with a enormous solar luminosity of 4.7 million suns. But according to astronomers, it's hard to pin down an exact brightness, or luminosity, for these scorching stars, so each star could potentially emit the same amount of light.
the expansive Eta Carinae Nebula perhaps until now harbored the brightest Star
The Peony nebula star is a fascinating entity. It appears to be the second-brightest star that we now know of in the galaxy, and it's located deep in our galaxy's center," said Lidia Oskinova of Potsdam University in Germany. "There are probably other stars just as bright if not brighter in our galaxy that remains hidden from view." Oskinova is principal investigator for the research and second author of a paper appearing in a future issue of the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.
A similar comparison was made with data from the European Southern Observatory's New Technology Telescope in Chile in calculating the Peony nebula star's luminosity.
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I think as humans we all have an affinity with the cosmos. It is a force that binds us with the Sun and Moon and all the celestial bodies. After all we are all made for the some matter as the stars.
Thank you all for your thoughts and comments.
Carl :0)