A star can grow big. It's not as big as we thought it would be.
The upper limit to a sun's mass is thought to be smaller than previously thought.
The mass of our own Sun was around 250 to 320 times that of the star. It is thought to be between 150 and 230 times the mass of the sun.
The downward revision of the star's mass could have deeper implications.
The work was part of a project to understand the cluster in which it is located. The Large Magellanic Cloud is a hot spot for star formation in the Tarantula Nebula.
The cluster contains some of the most massive stars known. The work could mean that our previous stellar upper mass limits are incorrect since these are critical anchor points for the upper mass function of massive stars.
The results show that the most massive star we know is not as big as we thought. It's possible that the upper limit on stellar mass may be smaller than previously thought.
We don't know what the upper limit is for star mass, but calculations and modeling suggest that it is. It's accepted that material in the star's outer layers will be ejected when the Eddington limit the outward pressure from the core's radiation exceeds the inward pressure.
The limit was set at 150 solar mass. New data on the R136 stars was acquired, with a lot of them weighing in at much higher levels.
The stars defy stellar formation models as well as the Eddington limit. We still don't have a good answer to the Eddington limit problem, despite research showing that chonkers can be formed through stellar mergers.
Settling on an upper mass limit would help solve the puzzle. The star's brightness and temperature can be observed in order to calculate stellar mass. Kalari and his colleagues wanted to get new, sharper pictures of the cluster.
The team was able to come up with a new mass for R136a1, as well as a new mass for R136a2 and R136a3 which were both smaller than 195-.
Heavy elements are produced in the universe. Massive stars end up as black holes, when they ejected their outer material and formed a black hole from the collapsing stellar core. The star can explode in a pair-instability supernova if it is over 130 solar mass.
Heavy elements are produced during violent events. If there aren't many stars in this mass range, we need to rethink the contribution pair-instability supernovae make to the heavy elements we observe out there in space.
One pair-instability supernova from a 300-solar mass star would produce and release more metals into the interstellar medium than an entire stellar mass function below it, which would completely change our understanding.
The researchers urge caution in their interpretation of the results, as they were achieved by pushing the limit of the Zorro instrument.
The next step would be to take and compare observations from other instruments.
The research can be found on arXiv.
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