A team of scientists led by Bangladeshi astrophysicist Rubab Khan of Nasa Goddard Space Flight Centre has discovered five supersize stars in other galaxies on a par with the monstrous stellar system in our own Milky Way.
At the American Astronomical Society’s annual meeting Wednesday, Rubab Khan, a researcher at Nasa’s Goddard Space Center in Maryland, reported on the discovery of five “Eta twins”, reports AP.
The Hubble Space Telescope and Nasa’s Spitzer Space Telescope helped identify them, he said.
“Eta Carinae is the brightest and most massive star system within 10,000 light-years of us. The binary system is located in the southern constellation of Carina, a ship’s keel, and outshines our own sun by 5 million times.”
Khan says the discovery will shed light on the evolution of these stellar heavyweights.
Eta Carinae erupted in the 1800s, hurling stellar material into space.
Yesterday, the US embassy in Dhaka applauded the Rubab for discovering five “super giant stars” in the far universe.
In a post on its official Facebook page, the embassy termed Rubab’s discovery as a “great breakthrough.”
The post said that a team led by Rubab found five similar super giant stars that matched in size and mass with Milky Way giant Eta Carinae and are located 15-26 million light years away in other galaxies.
