Weighing Massive Stars in Nearby Galaxy Reveals Excess of Heavyweights

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An international team of astronomers has revealed an 'astonishing' overabundance of massive stars in a neighbouring galaxy.

An international team of astronomers has revealed an 'astonishing' overabundance of massive stars in a neighbouring galaxy.

The discovery, made in the gigantic star-forming region 30 Doradus in the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy, has 'far-reaching' consequences for our understanding of how stars transformed the pristine Universe into the one we live in today.

The results are published in the journal Science.

Lead author Fabian Schneider, a Hintze Research Fellow in the University of Oxford's Department of Physics, said: 'We were astonished when we realised that 30 Doradus has formed many more massive stars than expected.'

Read more at University of Oxford

Photo credit: ESO/M.-R. Cioni/VISTA Magellanic Cloud survey. Acknowledgment: Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit via Wikimedia Commons