PARIS - Astronomers on Wednesday reported their best observation yet of a massive star embryo growing within a dark cloud -- the largest stellar "womb" ever spotted in our Milky Way galaxy.
The star, which could grow to 100 times the mass of our Sun and up to a million times brighter, was spotted by the most powerful radio telescope on Earth -- the ALMA international astronomy facility located in Chile, according to a paper published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics. Astronomers hope its discovery, at a distance of some 11,000 light years from Earth, will shed light on how these exceptionally massive stars are formed, shrouded as they are in dust and mystery.
"Not only are these stars rare, but their births are extremely rapid and childhood short, so finding such a massive object so early in its evolution in our Galaxy is a spectacular result," study co-author Gary Fuller of the University of Manchester said in a statement issued by the European Southern Observatory (ESO).