Study: Stars Have a Size Limit

space.com...

Astronomers announced today that stars can be born big, but only so big.



Theories over the years have predicted that an upper limit on stellar mass existed somewhere between 10 and 1,000 times the mass of our Sun. Recent observations of a massive cluster of stars in the center of our galaxy has found that this mass cutoff is about 150 times the Sun.



“The primary result is that there is a cutoff. There is little uncertainty about that,” said Don Figer from the Space Telescope Science Institute. “The secondary result is that it is about 150 solar masses.”



Figer used the Hubble Space Telescope to measure the masses of stars in the Arches Cluster, which is 25,000 light-years away and ten times the size of typical clusters in our galaxy. A cluster is a conglomeration of stars that all formed pretty much at the same time.

did anyone else know this???

if it is a fact, it is an interesting one...

enjoy!!!

Hmm I wonder what a solar system would look like with a sun 150 x more massive then our own. Would it have literally dozens of planets and hundreds of moons?

do they then break off into multi-star systems?

Really like to see some otehr solar systems and figure out what usually happens

We won't have to wait that long. The next gen telescopes are really going to lift the viel on the universe like Hubble did back in the 90s. Next Gen Telescope is going up soon as is the James Webb one in 2011. It's going to be an exciting time in the Exo-Planet intellectual goldrush

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Don't black holes originate mostly from a single star?

Over time i suppose they suck in other matterial, but don't they start from extremely massive stars?

The mass stuffed within that area is about 2.6 million times that of the sun.

www.usatoday.com...

Doesn't the size of some current black holes indicate that extremely massive stars must have existed at some point in time?

Perhaps what is being said is longer lived stars have some kind of upper size limit.

I have fantasies of incredibly huge super hot brilliant stars with very short life spans. Am i wrong in this?
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Am i wrong in this?

NO I do not think so at least. cmdkeenkid where are you....

Allthough I do believe that there could be some stars alot bigger then our own harboring Supersolar planetary systems. I really hope we find out soon though.

Haha, I still don't really get how there is actually a limit to how big stars can get....but sitll interesting.