Pistol star facts for kids
The Pistol Star is a huge, super bright star. It's called a blue hypergiant. This star is one of the brightest stars we know of in our home galaxy, the Milky Way.
It lives in a group of many big, young stars called the Quintuplet cluster. This cluster is right in the middle of our Milky Way galaxy. The Pistol Star is super far away, about 25,000 light years from Earth. It's in the direction of the Sagittarius constellation. Even though it's so bright, we can't see it with our eyes. This is because a lot of dust and gas in space blocks its light.
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Discovering the Pistol Star
The Pistol Star was first found by the Hubble Space Telescope. Scientists discovered it in the early 1990s. This powerful telescope helped us see through the dust that hides the star.
What Makes the Pistol Star Special?
The Pistol Star is truly amazing. It might have shot out huge amounts of material in giant bursts. These bursts happened about 4,000 to 6,000 years ago. It lost almost 10 times the mass of our Sun during these events.
The star's stellar wind is also incredibly strong. It's more than 10 billion times stronger than the Sun's wind. Scientists are still learning about its exact age. They also don't know for sure what its future holds. However, they think it will end in a huge explosion. This explosion will be a brilliant supernova or even a hypernova. This could happen in 1 to 3 million years.
How Bright is the Pistol Star?
When it was first found, some reports said the Pistol Star was the brightest star known. They thought it was almost 100 million times brighter than our Sun. But later studies changed this idea.
Now, scientists believe it's a type of star called a luminous blue variable. It's about one-third as bright as another famous star system, Eta Carinae. Even so, the Pistol Star is incredibly powerful. It gives off as much energy in just 20 seconds as the Sun does in an entire year!
Images for kids
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The Pistol Star is the brightest star in this image of the Quintuplet cluster, just below centre.
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Quintuplet cluster region, centered on the Pistol Star and its surrounding nebula
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See also
In Spanish: Estrella Pistola para niños
