The Sun is the biggest thing around, bar none. However, out in the cosmos, especially way-way back when the universe was still in its infancy there were much much larger ones. And now, using the incredible ability of the James Webb Space telescope to effectively look back in time, we’re finally getting evidence of those ancient behemoths.
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00The Sun is the biggest thing around bar none, but out in the cosmos, especially way way
00:09back when the universe was still in its infancy, there were much larger stars.
00:13And now using the incredible abilities of the James Webb Space Telescope to effectively
00:17look back in time, we're finally getting evidence of those ancient behemoths.
00:21In the moments relatively shortly after the Big Bang, experts say there were stars that
00:25had masses upwards of 10,000 times that of the Sun.
00:28For reference, the most massive star ever found is called R136A1, and it has a mass
00:33only 300 times that of the Sun.
00:36So how do experts know they existed if they're not around anymore?
00:39Astronomers often look at clusters of stars in the Milky Way, which often contain very
00:42old stars with some elements that are surprising to find.
00:45These elements can only be explained by a star burning at an extremely high temperature
00:49for a period of time, with experts saying that could happen in the cores of supermassive
00:54stars.
00:55The James Webb Space Telescope was just pointed in the direction of galaxy GN-Z11, which is
00:59so far away, light from it takes 13.3 billion years to reach us.
01:04The data gave astronomers signs of a supermassive star lurking in that galaxy, meaning we might
01:08soon get an image from a distant star cluster showing us what a star 10,000 times the mass
01:13of the Sun actually looks like.