What is the hottest star in the Milky Way?

Answer 1

When we talk about large stars, lets make sure we know what we mean. Do you mean the brightest, largest in circumference or largest in terms of mass (heaviest) ?? There are less massive starts, which outshines more massive cousins and as stars go through their life cycle, at times they can expand dramatically (larger circumference) just prior to dying.

The most massive star is generally thought to be the Pistol star near the center of our galaxy. This being said, we have not found all the stars in our galaxy yet, and larger (more massive) stars could still be found.

Answer 2

All stars shine but none do it like Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky. Aptly named, Sirius comes from the Greek word Seirius, meaning, "searing" or "scorching." Blazing at a visual magnitude of -1.42, it is twice as bright as any other star in our sky.

Sirius resides in the constellation Canis Major, the Big Dog, and is commonly called the Dog Star. In ancient Greek times the dawn rising of Sirius marked the hottest part of summer. This is the origin of the phrase "dog days of summer."

Because of Earths 26,000 year precession cycle, in which the planet's axis slowly wobbles due to the gravitational attraction of the Sun and Moon on the Earths equatorial bulge, Sirius no longer marks the hottest part of summer, rising later in the year. Precession gradually changes the location of stars on the celestial sphere.

Sirius is best seen at a favorable time during the winter months for northern hemisphere observers. To find the Dog Star, use the constellation of Orion as a guide. Follow the three belt stars -- obvious targets even for casual skywatchers -- 20 degrees southeast to the brightest star in the sky. Your fist at arm's length covers about 10 degrees of sky.

Sirius, the red giant star Betelgeuse, and Procyon in Canis Minor form a popular asterism known as the Winter Triangle.

Intrinsically, Sirius is 23 times more luminous and about twice the mass and diameter of the Sun. Of course its farther away from Earth than the Sun. But not too far, cosmically speaking. At a mere 8.5 light-years away, Sirius seems so bright in part because it is fifth closest star to the Sun.

The brilliance of Sirius illuminates not only our night skies, but also our comprehension of them. While observing it in 1718, Edmund Halley, of comet Halley fame, discovered that stars move in relation to one another a principle now known as proper motion.

In 1844, German astronomer Friedrich Bessel observed that Sirius had a wobble, as if being tugged by a companion. While testing his new 18.5-inch lens in 1862 (the largest refracting telescope in the world at that time), Alvan Clark solved this mystery by discovering that Sirius was not one star but two; the first compact stellar remnant had been discovered, and it would prove to be a pioneer of what would be later referred to as a whole class of white dwarf stars.

The companion, dubbed Sirius B, has the mass of the Sun in a package as small as the Earth, having collapsed after depleting its hydrogen. A single cubic inch of matter from this companion star would weigh 2.25 tons on Earth. At magnitude 8.5, it is 1/400th as luminous as the Sun. The brighter and larger companion is now known as Sirius A. [Sirius Map]

Answer 3

That depends on where exactly you decide to define that the Milky Way ends! The Milky Way is a collection of hundreds of billions of stars; there are nearby galaxies, like the Magellanic Clouds, that are considered other galaxies, but that - on the scale of galaxies - are practically in our neighborhood, and that in fact are gravitionally bound to our own galaxy.

Answer 4

The smallest star will be very hard to see, even if it happens to be in our immediate neighborhood; but even more so if it happens to be on the opposite side of the Milky Way. The smallest stars will have a mass of 75-80 times the mass of Jupiter; anything below that won't get hot and dense enough to fuse hydrogen-1 into helium-4, and will be called a "brown dwarf". There are probably millions of objects close to this threshold.

Answer 5

We have a candidate. The star at the center of the planetary nebula NGC 2440 has a surface temperature on the order of 200,000 °K.

Answer 6

the sun is the hotest star in our galaxie the milky way

Answer 7

The question cannot be answered because we are unable to study details of individual stars on the other side of the galaxy because of all the intervening stars.

Answer 8

Hundreds of millions of degrees

Answer 9

Every type that we know of.