Archivo de imágenes de Hubble

Vista artística de la estrella que gira más rápido, VFTS 102

This is an artist's concept of the fastest rotating star found to date. The massive, bright young star, called VFTS 102, rotates at a million miles per hour, or 100 times faster than our Sun does. Centrifugal forces from this dizzying spin rate have flattened the star into an obl...

Fecha
Jan 1, 2011
Misión
Hubble Space Telescope
ID de archivo
hubblesite-images-2011-39-2935-image
Por

This is an artist's concept of the fastest rotating star found to date. The massive, bright young star, called VFTS 102, rotates at a million miles per hour, or 100 times faster than our Sun does. Centrifugal forces from this dizzying spin rate have flattened the star into an oblate shape and spun off a disk of hot plasma, seen edge on in this view from a hypothetical planet. The star may have "spun up" by accreting material from a binary companion star. The rapidly evolving companion later exploded as a supernova. The whirling star lies 160,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way.

Credits

NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)

Detalles de la imagen

About The Object
Object NameVFTS 102, 2MASS J05373924-6909510
Object DescriptionStar located in the Tarantula Nebula (NGC 2070, 30 Doradus, 30 Dor), a star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC)
R.A. Position05h 37m 39s.25
Dec. Position-69° 09' 51".01
ConstellationDorado
Distance160,000 light-years (49,000 parsecs)
About The Data
Data DescriptionSpectra of 30 Dor were taken with the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) at the Paranal Observatory in Chile, as part of the VLT-FLAMES Tarantula Survey. The lead scientist on the survey project is C.J. Evans (UK ATC, STFC). The lead author on the publication about VFTS 102 is P.L. Dufton (Astrophysics Research Centre, Queen's University Belfast (ARC/QUB), UK).
InstrumentEuropean Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT)
Exposure DatesOctober 2008 through February 2009

Fuentes preferidas de Google

Descubre más de Space Telescope en Google

Elige Space Telescope como fuente preferida para encontrar más fácilmente nuestras noticias de misiones, reportajes visuales y explicaciones independientes en Google.