E-Paper
Bigger than Sun: scientists discover giant magnetic star
Scientists have discovered a new star that has a magnetic field 20,000 times stronger and a mass 35 times than that of the Sun.
Scientists have discovered a new star that has a magnetic field 20,000 times stronger and a mass 35 times than that of the Sun.
The newly discovered star, NGC 1624-2 lies about 20,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Perseus and has about 35 times the sun's mass, Space.com reported.
This massive star possesses a magnetic field 20,000 times stronger than the sun's and nearly 10 times stronger than that detected around any other high-mass star.
Its hefty mass gives it plenty of fuel, making it bright and hot and thus likely to burn out relatively quickly after a lifetime of about 5 million years, or one-tenth of 1% of the sun's current age at midlife.
The discovery is expected to shed light on what role the magnetism of stars plays in the evolution of stars and their galaxies.
"Magnetic fields of this strength are extremely rare - they are only known to exist in a few other stars of much lower mass," study lead author Gregg Wade, an astronomer at the Royal Military College of Canada.
