This is an artist's concept of the fastest rotating star found to date. The massive, bright young star, called VFTS 102, rotates at a million miles per hour, or 100 times faster than our Sun does. Centrifugal forces from this dizzying spin rate have flattened the star into an oblate shape and spun off a disk of hot plasma, seen edge on in this view from a hypothetical planet. The star may have "spun up" by accreting material from a binary companion star. The rapidly evolving companion later exploded as a supernova. The whirling star lies 160,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way.
Credits
NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | VFTS 102, 2MASS J05373924-6909510 |
| Object Description | Star located in the Tarantula Nebula (NGC 2070, 30 Doradus, 30 Dor), a star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) |
| R.A. Position | 05h 37m 39s.25 |
| Dec. Position | -69° 09' 51".01 |
| Constellation | Dorado |
| Distance | 160,000 light-years (49,000 parsecs) |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | Spectra of 30 Dor were taken with the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) at the Paranal Observatory in Chile, as part of the VLT-FLAMES Tarantula Survey. The lead scientist on the survey project is C.J. Evans (UK ATC, STFC). The lead author on the publication about VFTS 102 is P.L. Dufton (Astrophysics Research Centre, Queen's University Belfast (ARC/QUB), UK). |
| Instrument | European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) |
| Exposure Dates | October 2008 through February 2009 |
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | A name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object. |
| Object Description | The type of astronomical object. |
| R.A. Position | Right ascension – analogous to longitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Dec. Position | Declination – analogous to latitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Constellation | One of 88 recognized regions of the celestial sphere in which the object appears. |
| Distance | The physical distance from Earth to the astronomical object. Distances within our solar system are usually measured in Astronomical Units (AU). Distances between stars are usually measured in light-years. Interstellar distances can also be measured in parsecs. |
| Dimensions | The physical size of the object or the apparent angle it subtends on the sky. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description |
|
| Instrument | The science instrument used to produce the data. |
| Exposure Dates | The date(s) that the telescope made its observations and the total exposure time. |
| Filters | The camera filters that were used in the science observations. |
| About The Image | |
| Image Credit | The primary individuals and institutions responsible for the content. |
| Publication Date | The date and time the release content became public. |
| Color Info | A brief description of the methods used to convert telescope data into the color image being presented. |
| Orientation | The rotation of the image on the sky with respect to the north pole of the celestial sphere. |
