Sun Is Significantly Dimmer than Pac-Man Blob

A team of astronomers analyzing our neighboring irregular galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), were recently able to determine that a structure located within its farthest reaches contains a heat source that is several thousand times more luminous than our Sun.

The star at the core of our solar system is not a small one. It is a G2V, yellow main sequence star of an average mass and volume. But there are some counterparts in the Universe, and even in our own galaxy, that would make the Sun look like a spec of dust on a headlight.

Such is the case with the H II blob, a structure located inside the Nebula N214, which can be seen via telescope in one of the most remote parts of the LMC. Inside this particular stellar nursery, a large number of young blue stars produce tremendous amounts of radiation.

A nebula is an area of space that contains massive clouds of cosmic dust and hydrogen gas. The dust particles act as condensation nuclei for the gas, which aggregates around such particles.

Eventually, when enough gas comes together, it creates a cloud that is so heavy that it implodes, falling in on itself under its own gravitational pull. As this happens, intense friction sets the cloud on fire.

This in turn ignites nuclear fusion, and so a protostar is born. A large-enough stellar nursery can give birth to tens of stars each single year. Nebula N214 is not that large, but it does produce a fair number of stars regardless.

Inside this particular nursery lies a massive, globular blob of hot and ionized gas nick-named Pac-Man, as it resembles the video game character. Its sphere has a diameter of about four light-years.

Cosmic Pac-Man's mouth is created by a lane of cosmic dust, which is colder, and therefore appears darker in telescope images. It runs on a near-perfect north-south orientation, Daily Galaxy reports.

Using the IRAS satellite, astronomers discovered an impressively-strong infrared source in H II, which means that a tremendous heat source must exist within the gas blob. Estimates indicate the IR source is about 200,000 times more luminous than our own Sun.

The cluster most likely contains a O7 V star within, that weighs about 40 times the mass of the Sun. Another explanation for the bright IR light source could be that a 100-solar-mass star is currently being produced within, but has not been completed yet.

“It is possible that the blob resulted from massive star formation following the collapse of a thin shell of neutral matter accumulated through the effect of strong irradiation and heating of the star Sk-71 51,” explains astronomer Mohammad Heydari-Malayeri.

“Such a 'sequential star formation' has probably occurred also toward the southern ridge of N214C,” adds the expert, who is based at the Observatoire de Paris, in France. He was also a member of the team that conducted the new study.