| Pistol Star - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (368 words) |
 | The Pistol Star, which may be the most luminous star in the Milky Way galaxy (only if stellar candidate LBV 1806-20 is a tightly packed group or cluster of stars rather than an individual), is 10 million times as bright as the Sun and about 100 times as massive. |
| The Pistol Star would be visible to the naked eye as a fourth magnitude star if it were not for interstellar dust clouds hiding it from view; instead, it was discovered by the Hubble Space Telescope in the early 1990s using infrared wavelengths that penetrate the dust. |
| The Pistol Star may have created the Pistol Nebula, which it illuminates, by ejecting mass under the pressure of its own light; it is thought to have ejected up to 10 solar masses of material in giant outbursts from its outer layers about 4,000 and 6,000 years ago. |
Feeds |
Contact