14 DAY TRIAL // A collaboration of astronomers announces the discovery of the fastest-rotating star ever discovered. The team believes that VFTS 102 is rotating at a speed of at least 2 million kilometers (1.24 million miles) per hour.
The object was discovered inside the Tarantula Nebula, a part of the Large Magellanic Cloud. The LMC is one of the dwarf galaxies orbiting the Milky Way. VFTS 102 is one of the brightest stars in the nebula, experts say.
In order to conduct the new study, the team used the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT), at the Paranal Observatory, in Chile. The Fiber Large Array Multi Element Spectrograph (FLAMES) instrument was directly responsible for the finding.
“The remarkable rotation speed and the unusual motion compared to the surrounding stars led us to wonder if this star had had an unusual early life. We were suspicious,” Queen's University Belfast expert and lead study authro Philip Dufton explains.