Saturday, February 2, 2008

Most Massive Star-LBV 1806-20

LBV 1806-20


A star that may be the biggest and brightest in the universe dwarfs the sun in this artist's depiction, drawn to scale to demonstrate the star's massive size. The star, dubbed LBV 1806-20, is at least 150 times larger and 5 million times brighter than the sun. Located about 45,000 light years from Earth, it is detectable only with infrared telescopes, because all of its visible light is absorbed by dust particles in space. If it was located as near to the sun as this image suggests, the star's light would completely swamp that of the sun, making it invisible and virtually undetectable.

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