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| Discovery of the candidate most massive star |
| 2013-04-26 | |
The binary system, named R144, is located on the outskirt of a star formation region called Tarentula Nebula (or 30-Doradus) in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy orbiting our Milky Way, that can be seen from the southern hemisphere. In the centre of this star formation region, astrophysicists know of a large population of very bright stars with very peculiar spectroscopic properties unique to the class of Wolf-Rayet stars. These are young and massive stars that are losing part of their mass due to strong stellar winds. Some of these sometimes have masses larger than 220 times the mass of our Sun. R144 is the brightest star of 30-Doradus in the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum, but it also shines intensively in the x-ray domain. This duality is evidence of a binary system that was later confirmed by a detailed spectroscopic study. |
An international research team, that includes Anthony Moffat, Professor Emeritus at the physics department of the Université de Montréal and member of the CRAQ, observed a binary star which birth mass was of the order of 300 to 400 times the mass of our Sun. The current total mass of the binary system composed of two stars is estimated to be about 200-300 times the mass of the Sun, according to massive stars evolution models. The unexpected mass makes this duo the most massive binary star system known to date.
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