Biggest, Brightest Star Ever Found

[Shawn]

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January 6, 2004 | There's no Guinness Book of Astronomy Records, but if there were, Stephen Eikenberry (University of Florida) thinks he would have a new entry for it. At the January 2004 American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting in Atlanta, Eikenberry claimed to have identified the most massive and perhaps the most luminous star ever discovered.

The star in question is a luminous blue variable known as LBV 1806–20 for its celestial coordinates in northern Sagittarius. It's located some 45,000 light-years away on the far side of the Milky Way; intervening dust clouds obscure it from view at visible wavelengths of light. But in infrared light it shines through, and so do its surroundings. Eikenberry and a team of 16 other astronomers and graduate students find that the star emits between 5 million and 40 million times as much energy as the Sun. This probably edges out the previous record holders, Eta Carinae with 3 to 5 million solar luminosities, and the Pistol Star (so called for its location in the Pistol Nebula near the galactic center), which shines with the brightness of 5 or 6 million Suns.