UNBELIEVABLE! Telescope detects star 30x bigger than the Sun

The James Webb Space Telescope has just captured a stunning image located 15,000 light years from Earth. It is a sparkling Wolf-Rayet star, called WR 124, located in the constellation of Sagittarius. The most intriguing thing about this discovery is the fact that the star is 30 times the size of the Sun.

Wolf-Rayet Stars

Source: Wolf-Rayet stars are known to be efficient dust producers; NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/Webb ERO Production Team

Wolf-Rayet stars are very massive and luminous stars that are nearing the end of their lives. They were discovered in the early 20th century by French astronomers Charles Wolf and Georges Rayet, and have been the subject of intense study and fascination ever since.

They are also known for their great luminosity and for presenting peculiar spectra, with emission lines and very broad and intense absorptions, which indicate the presence of rare and heavy chemical elements, such as carbon, oxygen and nitrogen.

These stars can also be important sources of ionizing radiation and can contribute to the formation of new stars in their star-forming regions.

The Wolf-Rayet star observed by Webb is 30 times the mass of our Sun, which has a mass of about 333,000 Earths. So far, WR 124 has shed about 10 sols worth of material, creating the cold, glowing gas and cosmic dust.

These Stars Could Help Unravel Mysteries of the Past

Studying stars like WR 124 with Webb helps astronomers understand what happened in the early days of the universe, when dying stars exploded and released heavy elements that ended up on Earth and within our own bodies.

Amber Straughn, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and deputy project scientist, said, "At the end of a star's life, they shed their outer layers to the rest of the universe." She further adds:

“I think this is one of the most beautiful concepts in all of astronomy. This is Carl Sagan's concept of stardust, the fact that the iron in your blood and the calcium in your bones were literally forged inside a star that exploded billions of years ago. And that's what we're seeing in this new image. This dust is spreading across the cosmos and will eventually create planets. And that's how we got here, really."

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