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Science 20 January 1984:
Vol. 223. no. 4633, pp. 243 - 249
DOI: 10.1126/science.223.4633.243
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Articles

The Most Luminous Stars

Roberta M. Humphreys 1 and Kris Davidson 1

1 Associate professor in the Astronomy Department at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis 55455.

Stars with individual luminosities more than a million times that of the sun are now being studied in a variety of contexts. Observational and theoretical ideas about the most luminous stars have changed greatly in the past few years. They can be observed spectroscopically even in nearby galaxies. They are not very stable; some have had violent outbursts in which large amounts of mass were lost. Because of their instabilities, these stars do not evolve to become red superglants as less luminous stars do. Theoretical scenarios for the evolution of these most massive stars depend on the effects of turbulence and mixing combined with high radition densities.

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)