Astronomers have found the largest star ever recorded, dubbed the "monster star", in an area of a neighboring galaxy called the Tarantula nebula:
"The record-breaking star has a mass 265 times greater than the sun and is millions of times brighter, they said.The discovery has astonished scientists, who thought it was impossible for stars to exceed more than 150 times the mass of the sun.When the star was born it could have been more than twice as massive. Because it is so far away – about 165,000 light-years – it can only be seen with the use of powerful telescopes in the southern hemisphere.If the star, known as R136a1, took the place of the sun in our solar system, its gravitational attraction would pull our planet in so close that the length of an "Earth year" would shrink to three weeks."
Check out this cool graphic for a comparison of the "monster star" to our own solar system.
Watch a video report on the monster star, AFTER THE JUMP…
