The Pistol Star, once thought to be the brightest star in the Milky Way galaxy (exceeded only by LBV-1806), is 10 million times as bright as the Sun and about 100 times as massive. The star unleashes as much energy in six seconds as the sun does in one year. It is located approximately 25,000 light years from Earth in the direction of Sagittarius, near the center of the Milky Way. 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. This star is so massive that its future fate cannot be determined for certain, but it is expected that the Pistol Star will die in a brilliant supernova or hypernova in 1 to 3 million years. The Pleiades star cluster A star is any massive gaseous body in outer space, just like the Sun. ... the milkey way is the smallest in the local group. ... A sun is the star at the center of a planetary system. ... A light year, abbreviated ly, is the distance light travels in one year: roughly 9. ... Sagittarius (â™, and Latin for Archer) is a constellation of the zodiac, commonly depicted as a centaur drawing a bow. ... The Hubble Space Telescope is a telescope in orbit around the Earth. ... Remnant of Keplers Supernova, SN 1604. ... A hypernova is a theoretical type of supernova produced when an exceptionally large star collapses at the end of its lifespan. ...
Astronomers estimate the star formed 1 to 3 million years ago and was originally as much as 200 times the mass of the Sun before it shed much of its mass in violent eruptions. 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. Its stellar wind is 10 billion times stronger than the Sun's. The size of Pistol Star brings into question current models about how stars are formed, possibly exceeding the current theoretical upper limit. It is possible that the Pistol Star's location near the galaxy's center is partly responsible for its large mass, since current evidence suggests that the star formation process there may favor massive stars. The Pistol Nebula surrounds one of the most massive stars known, the Pistol Star. ... A solar wind is a stream of particles (mostly high-energy protons ~ 500 keV) which are ejected from the upper atmosphere of a star (in the case of a star other than the Earths Sun, it may be called a stellar wind instead). ...
External links
Pistol Star Fact Sheet
Further details on the Pistol Star from hubblesite.org
The PistolStar 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.
This star is so massive that its fate cannot be determined for certain, but it is expected that the PistolStar will die in a brilliant supernova or hypernova in 1 to 3 million years.
The PistolStar 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.
Similar to Eta Carinae in brightness, the PistolStar is one of the most luminous stars in the Local Group of galaxies surrounding the Milky Way (Figer et al, 1995).
The PistolStar may be radiating enough energy to halt the further infall of gas and dust that had been agglomerating onto the star, thus limiting its maximum mass.
The ejected gas (mostly hydrogen) moves outwards from the star at speeds of 50 to 500 kilometers per second and may be observed as nebulae that are bright in radio wavelengths.
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