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  • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT

Scientists face down ‘Godzilla’, the most luminous star known

Astronomers pin down a strange object in the sky as an outbursting star.
Hubble Space Telescope image of a galaxy with bright starts four bright arcs around the edges

The bow-shaped Sunburst Arc galaxy, home to the star nicknamed Godzilla, is visible multiple times in this image because of an effect called gravitational lensing. Credit: ESA/Hubble, NASA, Rivera-Thorsen et al. (CC BY 4.0)

Astronomers have spotted what might be the most luminous star ever observed1. The object, dubbed Godzilla, lurks in a galaxy roughly 3 gigaparsecs, or 11 billion light years, away.

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Nature 610, 10 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-03054-3

References

  1. Diego, J. M. et al. Astron. Astrophys. 665, A134 (2022).

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