Artist's Concept of the Fastest-Rotating Massive Star Found to Date (IMAGE)

University of California - Santa Barbara

Artist's Concept of the Fastest-Rotating Massive Star Found to Date

Caption

This is an artist's concept of the fastest-rotating massive star found to date. The massive, bright young star, called VFTS 102, rotates at about two million kilometers per hour. Centrifugal force from this dizzying spin rate has 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. Scientists believe that the rapidly evolving companion star later exploded as a supernova. The whirling star lies 160,000 light years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way.

Credit

NASA/ESA and G. Bacon (STScI)

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