0:00 Among the vast array of stars,
0:03 WHG64, often dubbed the behemoth star,
0:06 stands out as an extraordinary anomaly.
0:09 This red super giant, located in the
0:11 large melanic cloud, is so immense that
0:14 if placed at the center of our solar
0:16 system, its outer layers would extend
0:18 beyond Jupiter's orbit. Its sheer size
0:21 and luminosity challenge our
0:23 understanding of stellar physics,
0:24 pushing the boundaries of what we
0:26 consider possible in star formation and
0:28 evolution.
0:30 As we delve into the science and
0:31 implications surrounding this colossal
0:33 star, we uncover a universe far more
0:35 violent, beautiful, and bizarre than
0:37 previously
0:40 imagined. A universe of fire. What makes
0:43 a star a
0:46 giant? We can only see tiny bits of
0:48 light when we look up at the stars. But
0:50 behind those flashes are raging circles
0:52 of nuclear wroth, cosmic fires that make
0:55 life possible, bend time with their
0:57 gravity, and light up whole
1:00 galaxies. Still, not every star is the
1:03 same. A lot of them are nice, like our
1:06 sun. Others are gigantic, growing so big
1:09 it's hard to imagine. And their flames
1:11 are so bright they could swallow worlds
1:14 whole and still want more. But what does
1:17 a star giant look like? In stellar
1:19 terms, the word giant isn't just
1:21 hyperbole. It's a specific stage in a
1:24 star's life. After a star exhausts the
1:26 hydrogen in its core, it begins to burn
1:29 heavier elements in a shell around that
1:32 core. The outward pressure from this new
1:34 phase of fusion causes the outer layers
1:37 of the star to balloon outward. As a
1:40 result, it becomes a red giant, a
1:43 swollen version of its former self. For
1:46 stars far more massive than the sun,
1:48 this process leads to something even
1:50 more extreme. The red super giant, or in
1:54 rare cases, a hyper giant, a creature so
1:56 vast that it could eclipse entire
1:58 planetary systems. But how do we measure
2:01 such enormous objects? Astronomers use
2:04 units that stretch the imagination. The
2:07 sun, for instance, has a radius of about
2:09 696,000 km. A red super giant like
2:13 Battlejuice has a radius up to 900 times
2:16 larger than the sun. That means it could
2:18 easily reach beyond the orbit of Mars if
2:20 placed at the center of our solar
2:22 system. But even Betal Juice isn't the
2:25 biggest. Enter
2:27 WHG64, the behemoth star, an absolute
2:31 Leviathan with a radius estimated to be
2:33 up to 1540 times that of the sun. That
2:38 would extend beyond Jupiter's orbit.
2:40 Size though is only one dimension of a
2:43 stars terror. Brightness or luminosity
2:46 is another. Luminosity is the total
2:49 amount of energy a star emits per
2:51 second. Our sun is a stable middleweight
2:54 producing enough energy to support life
2:56 on Earth. But giants like the behemoth
2:59 star produce hundreds of thousands of
3:01 times more light and heat. They burn
3:04 fast, they burn bright, and they die
3:07 spectacularly.
3:08 The most massive stars are often found
3:10 in distant irregular galaxies like the
3:13 large melanic cloud where metallicity,
3:16 the abundance of elements heavier than
3:18 hydrogen and helium is
3:20 lower. This strange chemistry enables
3:23 stars to grow far larger before shedding
3:25 mass. These are stellar nurseries of
3:28 extremes where monsters are born and
3:30 physics is tested to its limits. Being
3:33 big is both good and bad in the
3:35 universe. The life of a star is shorter
3:39 the bigger it is. It goes through its
3:41 fuel at a very fast rate because the
3:43 pressure in its heart is so high. It
3:46 only lives for a few million years while
3:49 the sun lives for 10 billion years.
3:52 There are no gentle old gods in the sky.
3:55 These are raging giants living on
3:57 borrowed time.
4:00 The birth of colossal stars in strange
4:05 galaxies. Stars that are very bright
4:08 don't just appear out of nowhere. They
4:10 form in places that are so rare and
4:12 harsh that the rules for how stars form
4:14 seem to be pushed to their limits. These
4:17 huge galaxies like the behemoth star,
4:19 Stevenson 2, 18, and UI Scooty are not
4:23 related to our Milky Way. Instead, a lot
4:26 of them are born in strange places in
4:28 the galaxy, like satellite galaxies or
4:30 groups with strange chemical makeups and
4:33 a lot of violent starburst
4:35 activity. Before we can understand how
4:37 scary the power of the biggest stars is,
4:40 we need to know where and how they are
4:42 born. Metallicity, or the amount of
4:45 elements heavier than hydrogen and
4:46 helium, is a big part of how massive
4:49 stars grow.
4:51 Astrophysicists use the word metals to
4:54 describe things like carbon, oxygen, and
4:56 iron, which were all formed in the cause
4:59 of older stars. The less metallicity
5:02 there is, the easier it is for a gas
5:04 cloud to collapse and turn into a huge
5:07 star. That's because metals help get rid
5:10 of heat, which makes the cloud break up
5:12 and make smaller stars. In places with
5:15 few metals, like some parts of the large
5:17 melanic cloud, LMC, the gas clouds keep
5:20 more of their heat, which lets them
5:22 collapse into a few very large stars
5:25 instead of many smaller ones. These
5:27 environments are breeding grounds for
5:29 massive star clusters, which can contain
5:31 hundreds or thousands of stars born
5:33 nearly
5:34 simultaneously. In such chaos, some
5:37 stars quickly consume the dense gas
5:39 around them, ballooning into giants.
5:41 It's a process of cosmic cannibalism
5:44 where the stars that form first or in
5:46 the densest spots monopolize resources.
5:49 These privileged stars become the super
5:51 giants, the hyper giants, the monsters
5:53 of astronomy. But it's not just about
5:55 location. Turbulence and rotation within
5:57 gas clouds play a crucial role.
6:00 Turbulent motion can compress some
6:01 regions of a cloud enough to form
6:03 extremely massive stars. And when those
6:06 gas clouds rotate just right, they can
6:08 funnel material into the center with
6:10 incredible efficiency. If gravity wins
6:13 out over internal pressure, a single
6:15 star can grow dozens or even hundreds of
6:18 times the mass of the sun before it
6:20 ignites
6:21 fully. There's also a strange cosmic
6:23 paradox at play here. Big stars are
6:26 harder to make, but they rule their
6:28 surroundings. Their strong radiation
6:30 shapes clouds close by, starting new
6:33 waves of star formation, or if it's too
6:35 strong, stopping other stars from
6:37 forming at all. It's like a cosmic queen
6:40 who steals all the attention and doesn't
6:43 let anyone else shine. One of the most
6:46 amazing facts is that it may have been
6:48 much easier for the biggest stars to
6:50 form in the beginning of the
6:52 universe. When galaxies were young and
6:55 full of pure hydrogen and helium, the
6:58 conditions were perfect for population 3
7:00 stars to form. These are thought to be
7:03 the first generation of stars and could
7:05 have been hundreds or even thousands of
7:07 times heavier than the sun. We've never
7:10 seen them directly, but their offspring,
7:12 like the behemoth star, may be far away
7:15 reminders of that chaos from long
7:19 ago. The large melanic cloud, a cradle
7:22 for titans.
7:26 If the Milky Way is the grand center of
7:28 our cosmic neighborhood, then its
7:29 neighboring galaxy, the large melanic
7:31 cloud, is the Wild Border. This close
7:34 dwarf galaxy is rough and uneven, and
7:36 it's full of raw star forming power.
7:39 Despite its small size, it is home to
7:42 some of the biggest, brightest, and
7:43 strangest stars ever found, such as the
7:45 Behemoth Star. It looks like a
7:48 contradiction. A galaxy with a small
7:50 mass but a big strategy to produce
7:53 stars. Located about 163,000 lighty
7:57 years from Earth, the large melanic
7:59 cloud LMC orbits the Milky Way like a
8:02 loyal companion with a secret weapon.
8:05 Despite being just onetenth the mass of
8:07 our galaxy, the LMC has earned a
8:10 reputation as a stellar nursery,
8:12 producing more highmass stars per unit
8:14 of gas than the Milky Way. It's a
8:16 galactic forge burning bright with
8:18 clusters and nebuli like 30 Dadus,
8:21 better known as the Tarantula Nebula,
8:23 one of the most active star forming
8:25 regions in the local group. So, what
8:27 makes the LMC so special? It comes down
8:30 to chemistry and chaos. The LMC has
8:32 lower metalicity than the Milky Way,
8:35 meaning its gas is poorer in elements
8:37 heavier than helium. In star formation,
8:39 this is a big deal. Metals help gas
8:42 clouds cool and fragment, typically
8:44 resulting in many smaller stars. But in
8:46 the metal pore LMC, the gas stays warmer
8:49 and collapses more easily into fewer,
8:51 more massive stars. It's a galaxy that
8:54 doesn't favor balance. It favors
8:56 extremes. This is the perfect place for
8:59 large babies like the Behemoth Star to
9:01 be born. This star is deep in the LMC
9:04 and is covered in a thick layer of dust
9:07 that makes it hard to see even with
9:09 infrared instruments. But it is one of
9:11 the biggest and brightest red super
9:13 giants we've ever found. With a diameter
9:15 more than 1,500 times that of the sun
9:18 and a light 280,000 times that of the
9:21 sun. It's not just big. It is barely
9:25 hanging on, releasing its upper layers
9:27 in a steady exhale like a star. The LMC
9:30 has long served as a cosmic laboratory
9:32 for astronomers to test theories of
9:34 stellar evolution, especially at the
9:36 massive end of the scale. Because of its
9:39 proximity and clarity, there's less dust
9:41 between it and us than in many parts of
9:44 our own
9:45 galaxy. The LMC allows telescopes like
9:47 the Hubble and the Very Large Telescope
9:50 to peer into the heart of star clusters
9:52 and nebuli, capturing massive stars at
9:55 every stage of life, from newborn blue
9:57 giants to dying red super giants. What's
10:00 even more interesting is how exchanges
10:03 with the Milky Way may have made it more
10:05 active. Our galaxy's tides could be
10:08 pushing gas in the LMC together, which
10:10 could cause bursts of star
10:13 formation. Some scientists even think
10:15 that our two galaxies will crash into
10:17 each other billions of years from now.
10:20 It would be like today's fireworks with
10:22 stars shooting off like
10:24 sparks. The LMC shows us a bit of a
10:27 different time in the history of the
10:29 universe. The galaxy's chaotic
10:31 structure, gas that is low in metals,
10:34 and energetic star nurseries are a lot
10:36 like the early galaxies where the first
10:38 big stars were formed. It teaches us
10:42 more than just about stars like the
10:43 behemoth star. It teaches us how
10:46 structure, complexity, and drama in the
10:49 universe came to be. The large melanic
10:52 cloud is more than just a small galaxy
10:54 next door. We're looking into the
10:56 primordial forge, a furnace of stars
10:59 where size doesn't
11:02 matter. Red super giants versus hyper
11:05 giants. What's the
11:09 difference? At first view, red super
11:12 giants and hyper giants might look like
11:14 the same kind of space monster. They are
11:16 both very big, burn nuclear fuel very
11:18 quickly, and are doomed to end in
11:20 disaster. There is a small but important
11:23 difference between hyper giants and
11:25 other stars. Hypergiants aren't just
11:27 bigger. They're breaking the rules of
11:29 physics all the time. A red super giant
11:32 is a massive star that has evolved past
11:35 the main sequence, swelling in size as
11:37 it burns heavier elements in its core.
11:40 These stars are generally between 10 to
11:42 40 times the mass of the sun and can
11:45 reach hundreds, even over a thousand
11:47 times the sun's radius. Beetlejuice is
11:50 the classic example. A bloated aging
11:52 giant nearing the end of its life. It's
11:55 big. It's red. It's unstable, but within
11:58 the bounds of what we expect from
12:00 stellar evolution. Now enter the hyper
12:03 giant. These are not just larger, though
12:06 many are. They are defined by something
12:08 more intense. Extreme instability and
12:10 loss of mass.
12:12 Hyper giants, especially the yellow and
12:14 red varieties, are stars that exist in a
12:17 very narrow, dangerous window of stellar
12:19 evolution. They burn fuel so rapidly and
12:22 expand so violently that their outer
12:25 layers are constantly being ejected into
12:27 space. It's not just expansion, it's
12:30 chaos on a cosmic scale. The behemoth
12:32 star fits into this picture not just
12:35 because of its enormous size, more than
12:37 1,500 times the radius of the sun, but
12:40 because of its behavior. It has a
12:43 massive dust envelope that extends
12:45 nearly a lightyear from its surface.
12:48 That alone indicates extreme mass loss,
12:50 a key signature of hyper giant status.
12:54 Some astronomers debate whether to label
12:56 the behemoth star a hyper giant
12:58 outright, but its spectral lines, mass
13:01 loss rate, and unstable structure place
13:03 it teetering on the edge of that
13:05 definition. It is thought that there are
13:07 only a few dozen hyper giants in our
13:10 galaxy. Why? Because stars are only in
13:13 this hypergent phase for a very short
13:16 time, often only tens of thousands of
13:18 years. A blink in the grand scheme of
13:21 things. They are transitional events
13:23 like pictures of stars breaking apart
13:25 before their unavoidable end, collapse,
13:29 explosion, and change. What sets hyper
13:32 giants apart spectroscopically is also
13:35 fascinating. They exhibit broad emission
13:38 lines and spectral anomalies which
13:40 suggest turbulence, shock waves, and
13:42 powerful stellar winds. These are not
13:45 peaceful giants. They are roaring
13:47 furnaces under pressure, throwing off
13:49 vast amounts of material in chaotic
13:52 bursts. Their limits on brightness are
13:54 another important difference. Most red
13:57 super giants are below the Edington
13:59 limit, which is the place where the pull
14:01 of radiation equals the pull of
14:03 gravity. Hyper giants, on the other
14:06 hand, get close to or go over this
14:08 limit, which is why they can't keep
14:10 their atmospheres. The hyperg state is
14:13 like a bubble that is so blown up that
14:15 even the smallest touch can cause it to
14:17 burst. So while red super giants are
14:20 massive and majestic, hyper giants are
14:22 unstable, short-lived, and mythic in
14:24 scale. They are stars burning the candle
14:27 at both ends, reaching for a cosmic
14:29 crescendo that promises either a
14:31 spectacular supernova or a direct plunge
14:34 into black hole oblivion.
14:38 Meet the behemoth star, the beast in the
14:43 cloud. If the universe had a hall of
14:46 fame for cosmic titans, the behemoth
14:48 star would tower above them all. A
14:50 bloated, burning beast of a star lurking
14:52 not in our own galaxy, but in the large
14:55 melanic cloud, a satellite galaxy of the
14:57 Milky Way. This monster is so big, so
15:01 luminous, and so wrapped in mystery that
15:03 it forces astronomers to rethink what
15:06 stars are capable of. First discovered
15:08 in the 1970s by astronomers Westerland,
15:12 Olander, and Hedin, whose initials gave
15:14 the star its name, the behemoth star
15:17 quickly stood out for its sheer scale.
15:20 Estimates place its radius at around
15:22 1,500 times that of the sun. Meaning if
15:25 it replaced our solar system star, its
15:28 surface would engulf Mercury, Venus,
15:30 Earth, Mars, and stretch close to
15:31 Jupiter's orbit. The scale is
15:34 mind-melting. Picture the sun as a
15:36 tennis ball. The behemoth star would be
15:39 a sphere the size of a football stadium.
15:42 But the Behemoth star isn't just big.
15:45 It's also one of the most luminous stars
15:47 we've ever found, pumping out roughly
15:49 280,000 times more light than the sun.
15:53 And yet, ironically, it's shrouded in
15:56 darkness, ins snared in a dense
15:58 doughut-shaped dust envelope that masks
16:00 much of its radiance. This thick veil of
16:03 stellar ash and expelled gas makes the
16:06 star difficult to observe directly, but
16:08 also hints at something far more
16:10 fascinating. A star in the middle of
16:13 self-destruction.
16:14 It's not just a cloudy halo. The
16:17 material that the behemoth star is
16:19 throwing out is almost a lightyear
16:21 across. It's like a death shroud moving
16:23 slowly away, pushed away by strong star
16:26 winds and unstable outer layers. This
16:29 circle suggests that the star is rapidly
16:32 losing its mass. This is a common
16:34 behavior for stars that are getting
16:36 close to the end of their lives and
16:38 burning through their fuel at a rate
16:40 that can't be maintained. And then
16:42 there's the temperature.
16:45 Despite its fiery power, the behemoth
16:47 star is surprisingly cool for a star
16:50 with surface temperatures of just 3,00
16:52 to 3,400 Kelvin. Cool enough to classify
16:56 it as a red super giant. Yet, even among
16:59 red super giants, this one is an
17:02 outlier. It sits near or perhaps beyond
17:06 a theoretical limit called the Hayashi
17:08 limit. a boundary in stellar physics
17:10 that tells us a star of a certain mass
17:12 shouldn't be able to remain stable at
17:14 such low temperatures and large sizes.
17:17 The behemoth star is defying that rule,
17:19 which has left astronomers scratching
17:21 their heads. We're still not sure if the
17:24 behemoth star is a single star or a
17:26 system with two stars. It's hard to tell
17:29 if it has a friend because of the dust
17:31 and the distance. Some ideas say that a
17:34 bright blue and hot OP star could be
17:36 hiding just out of sight.
17:38 If this is true, the behemoth star would
17:41 be a binary star system. This could help
17:43 explain why it has lost so much mass
17:45 through collisions or reactions with the
17:47 tides. But as of now, no partner has
17:50 been announced for sure. Another
17:53 interesting thing is that the behemoth
17:55 star is in the large melanic cloud. This
17:58 galaxy is known for having strange huge
18:01 stars. This might be because it has a
18:04 different chemical makeup than the Milky
18:06 Way with less metal in it. That could
18:09 mean that stars in the LMC change in
18:12 different ways, get bigger, or die in
18:14 more dramatic ways. The Behemoth star
18:17 might be the perfect example of this
18:19 kind of strange growth. It is a star
18:22 that was born in a place that lets it
18:24 grow much bigger than we'd normally
18:26 expect.
18:30 A star 1,500 times the sun's size.
18:34 Understanding
18:37 scale. Numbers don't always show how
18:40 unbelievable something is. It sounds
18:42 cool when scientists say that the
18:44 behemoth star is 1,500 times the
18:47 diameter of our sun. But what does that
18:49 really mean? How can we understand such
18:52 a huge unknown thing in a way that feels
18:54 real, even if only for a moment?
18:58 Let's begin with something small. The
19:01 diameter of our sun is about
19:03 696,000 km. If you multiply that number
19:07 by
19:08 1,500, you get a radius of more than 1
19:11 billion km. This is such a huge sphere
19:14 that it would go far beyond Jupiter's
19:16 orbit if it were put in the middle of
19:18 our solar system. No more Mercury,
19:20 Venus, Earth, or Mars. Jupiter's moons
19:24 toast. The upper rings of the sun would
19:27 get so big that they would swallow up
19:28 the whole inner solar system. Still hard
19:31 to picture? Imagine a standard passenger
19:34 jet flying around the sun's equator. It
19:37 would take just over 6 months to
19:39 complete the trip at cruising speed. For
19:42 the behemoth
19:43 star, the same journey would take over
19:46 75 years, one lap around a single star.
19:50 The scale also warps our understanding
19:52 of mass and gravity. The Behemoth star
19:55 is massive, but not proportionally so.
19:58 While it's more than 20 times the mass
20:00 of the sun, its vast size means the
20:02 material making up this star is
20:04 incredibly diffuse. Its outer layers are
20:07 like stellar fog, so spread out they're
20:09 barely holding together under the stars
20:11 gravity. You could fly a spaceship
20:14 through the outer regions of the
20:15 behemoth star and encounter less
20:17 resistance than you would driving
20:19 through Earth's atmosphere. Not only is
20:21 this construction interesting, it's also
20:24 dangerous. It is more likely for a star
20:27 to collapse as it gets bigger. The
20:29 behemoth star is also living on the
20:31 edge. There is a limit called the
20:33 Hayashi limit that tells us if a star
20:36 with a certain mass can stay stable at a
20:39 low temperature and a high radius. If
20:42 you cross that line, the star starts to
20:44 crumple in on itself or throw mass
20:46 outward, sometimes very forcefully. The
20:49 area around it is also affected by its
20:52 size. Even though the behemoth star is
20:55 pretty cool, it gives off a huge amount
20:57 of energy because it has a huge surface
20:59 area. That much energy changes its
21:02 surroundings by heating up cosmic dust.
21:05 Moving away nearby matter and maybe even
21:07 changing how other stars form. It is a
21:10 bully in every way. It shapes its part
21:13 of the world just by being there.
21:16 A scary thing about this size is that it
21:18 might not be the biggest one ever. Some
21:21 red hyper giant stars like Stevenson 2,
21:24 18, UI Scooty, and others may be as big
21:27 as or even bigger than the Behemoth
21:29 star, but from what we can tell right
21:31 now, the Behemoth star is one of the
21:34 biggest by volume. Its dusty hood makes
21:36 it hard to get exact measures. That
21:38 could be part of the magic. Not only is
21:41 the Behemoth star huge, it's also hard
21:43 to find. This star is so big that it's
21:47 hard to understand, so far away that
21:49 it's hard to see, and so unique that
21:52 it's hard to explain. It's not just
21:54 science that helps us understand its
21:56 size. It's a way to change our ideas
21:59 about what's possible in the universe.
22:01 [Music]
22:03 If the behemoth star replaced our sun,
22:06 solar system
22:09 devoured. Think about what it would be
22:11 like to discover tomorrow that the
22:13 behemoth star had supplanted our sun. It
22:16 happened all of a sudden with no notice
22:18 and no time to get ready. There won't be
22:21 a fiery morning to meet us. There would
22:23 be no sunrise at all. Earth and the
22:26 worlds nearby would already be nothing
22:28 but smoke. The behemoth stars estimated
22:31 radius is around 1,500 times that of the
22:34 sun, about 1 billion km. That's far
22:37 enough to completely engulf not only
22:39 Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars, but
22:42 also Jupiter, the gas giant more than
22:45 five times farther from the sun than
22:47 Earth. The entire inner solar system
22:50 would be erased in an instant. The stars
22:52 outer atmosphere would stretch close to
22:54 Saturn's orbit, turning once familiar
22:57 planetary highways into sthing,
22:59 turbulent plasma. But it's not just the
23:02 size that spells doom. It's the heat and
23:05 the
23:06 radiation. The behemoth star emits over
23:09 280,000 times more light than our sun.
23:13 If somehow a planet survived the initial
23:16 engulfment and remained in orbit just
23:18 beyond the stars new radius, the
23:21 conditions would be
23:22 unimaginable. Surface temperatures would
23:24 soar to thousands of degrees C. The
23:27 atmosphere would be stripped. The oceans
23:30 would boil into space. Radiation levels
23:33 would spike to lethal levels in moments.
23:36 The gravitational disruption would also
23:38 be catastrophic.
23:40 The mass of the behemoth star, though
23:42 only around 2025 solar masses, would
23:46 still be enough to drastically alter the
23:48 orbital mechanics of every planet, moon,
23:51 and object in the solar system.
23:53 Planetary orbits would be stretched,
23:55 bent, or even snapped. The Kyper belt
23:58 would be flung outward. The orort cloud
24:01 might be scattered into deep space.
24:04 Everything held in the delicate balance
24:06 of the sun's gravity would now respond
24:08 to a new, more aggressive force. And
24:12 then there's the solar wind, or in this
24:14 case, stellar wind on steroids. Red
24:17 super giants like the behemoth star shed
24:20 mass constantly in the form of stellar
24:22 winds blowing off their outer layers at
24:24 high speeds. The solar system, once a
24:27 quiet neighborhood, would become a
24:29 maelstrom of charged particles and dust.
24:32 Space weather would turn deadly.
24:34 Satellites and spacecraft would be
24:35 shredded or melted. Space travel out of
24:39 the question. Not only would we have to
24:41 deal with loss, but also change. Our
24:44 solar systems once familiar structure
24:45 would be changed by the gravity and
24:47 radiative pull of a dying behemoth. The
24:50 livable zone, that safe area where water
24:52 stays drinkable, would be pushed to the
24:55 very edges of the solar system, maybe
24:57 even further. Planets near Uranus and
25:00 Neptune could turn into very hot
25:02 infernos. When moons are frozen, they
25:05 could boil and
25:07 burst. And yet, even with all this
25:09 chaos, the behemoth star would not
25:11 remain stable for long. Stars this large
25:14 live fast and die young. In cosmic
25:17 terms, this monster is on borrowed time,
25:20 ready to collapse, explode, or shed its
25:23 layers in spectacular fashion. Its
25:25 presence in the solar system wouldn't
25:27 just end life as we know it. It would
25:30 set the stage for an entirely new kind
25:32 of solar system. One filled with dust,
25:35 debris, and the lingering echo of a star
25:37 too big to
25:40 last. A light in the darkness 280,000
25:44 times more luminous than the sun.
25:49 Not only is the Behemoth star much
25:51 bigger than our sun, it also shines
25:54 brighter in every way that can be
25:55 measured. With an estimated brightness
25:58 about 280,000 times that of the sun, it
26:01 is one of the brightest stars that
26:03 people have ever found. That being said,
26:06 what does that number really mean in
26:08 real life? The amount of energy a star
26:10 gives off every second is called its
26:12 luminosity. With a brightness of about
26:15 3.8x10 8x10 W. The sun isn't bad either.
26:18 It helps keep the Earth's temperature,
26:20 weather, and respiration going from
26:22 about 150 million km away. Do that again
26:25 with 280,000. That's
26:29 1.064x103 W, which is a number that is
26:32 so huge it's hard to understand. It's
26:35 not just a flame versus a bonfire. It's
26:38 like comparing a matchstick to the
26:39 explosion of a planet. This blinding
26:42 brightness isn't just a curious data
26:44 point. it dramatically affects the space
26:46 around it. The radiation pressure alone
26:49 is enough to blast the stars own
26:51 material into space, creating powerful
26:53 stellar winds and vast shells of dust.
26:57 And while most of the behemoth stars
26:58 light is emitted in the infrared and
27:00 visible
27:01 spectrums, its sheer intensity means it
27:04 would be detectable across vast
27:06 intergalactic distances if not for the
27:09 thick cloud of dust partially obscuring
27:11 it from view.
27:13 Much of what we know about the behemoth
27:15 star comes not from direct optical
27:17 observation, but through infrared
27:19 telescopes like those used by the Very
27:21 Large Telescope in Chile. These
27:24 instruments can peer through the dust to
27:26 read the stars spectral fingerprints,
27:29 telling us how much energy it releases,
27:31 what elements are in its atmosphere, and
27:34 how rapidly it's shedding its outer
27:36 layers. This unbelievably bright light
27:39 also points to a star in trouble. The
27:41 behemoth star is pretty much at the end
27:43 of its useful life. Stars this bright
27:47 use up their fuel at unsustainable
27:49 rates. Our sun still has about 5 billion
27:52 years to go. But the behemoth star will
27:55 only be around for millions of years,
27:57 which is a blink in the grand scheme of
27:59 things. Its huge amount of energy output
28:02 shows how important this is. It's like a
28:04 dangerous nuclear engine going at full
28:06 speed knowing its time is running out.
28:09 And that brightness, that huge cosmic
28:12 light bulb, doesn't just shine, it
28:14 changes things. It makes the place
28:16 clean. Chemicals are broken up by it. If
28:19 an unlucky planet happened to circle
28:20 close enough, it would be hit with
28:22 radiation levels high enough to destroy
28:24 DNA and quickly evaporate any
28:27 atmosphere. The behemoth star is not a
28:29 fan-friendly star. It's like a fire that
28:32 spews out heat, light, and death into
28:34 space. This kind of giant star has
28:36 convective instability, which means that
28:39 it goes through waves of light and
28:41 dimming. Each change could be a sign of
28:43 a change in the stars interior, a sign
28:46 that it is about to fall, explode, or
28:49 have some other end we don't know about
28:51 yet. So, why do we study something that
28:54 scares us so much? Because the behemoth
28:57 star can help us figure out how the
28:59 universe's biggest stars live and die.
29:02 We can see something that only happens
29:04 in a few places in the universe thanks
29:06 to how bright it is. It's a slow motion
29:09 look at the end of the stars and it
29:11 helps scientists figure out how galaxies
29:13 change over
29:16 time. The dust envelope, a one
29:19 light-year long cloak of
29:23 death. This kind of dust doesn't just
29:25 appear out of nowhere. It comes from
29:27 violent chaos. As the last steps of
29:30 nuclear fusion happen in the behemoth
29:32 star, it sends a huge amount of material
29:35 into space. This includes gas, plasma,
29:38 and heavier elements that were formed in
29:39 the stars very hot core. These ejections
29:43 cool down very quickly and turn into
29:45 tiny dust grains made of silicates,
29:47 carbon compounds, and other elements
29:49 that don't easily melt. Astronomers call
29:52 this a circumstellar dust jacket. The
29:55 grains build up over time into a shell.
29:59 But the behemoth stars envelope is no
30:01 ordinary halo. In 2007, observations
30:05 from the Very Large Telescope revealed
30:07 something unexpected. The dust isn't
30:09 evenly distributed. Instead, it takes
30:12 the form of a tooidal donut-shaped
30:15 structure, suggesting that powerful
30:17 stellar winds or magnetic fields are
30:19 funneling material into specific
30:21 directions. It's almost as if the star
30:24 is wearing a cloak, one tailored by
30:26 rotational physics and stellar
30:28 instability. This Taurus doesn't just
30:31 block the view, it also changes the type
30:33 of light the star gives off. A lot of
30:36 the Behemoth stars energy is absorbed by
30:38 the dust and then sent back out in the
30:40 infrared. This is why the Spitzer Space
30:43 Telescope and infrared spectroscopes on
30:45 Earth are so important for figuring out
30:47 what it is. Without them, the behemoth
30:50 star would be mostly unnoticeable, like
30:52 a beast that is hiding in plain sight.
30:55 Then there's the weight of it.
30:57 Astronomers think that the dust cloud
30:59 holds between three and nine solar
31:01 masses of material that has been thrown
31:03 out. That means the behemoth star has
31:06 already lost more matter than most stars
31:08 ever have, which is a stunning sign that
31:10 it is nearing the end of its life. As if
31:14 a god were dying, it leaks energy and
31:16 matter into nothingness every second.
31:19 What does a light-year wide dust shell
31:20 mean for the space around it?
31:23 Catastrophe. The radiation from the
31:26 behemoth star pushes this dust outward,
31:28 driving a deadly shock front that
31:30 sterilizes the region. If a planet ever
31:33 existed nearby, it would now be buried
31:35 under layers of radiation scarred debris
31:38 and vaporized molecules. There is no
31:41 safe distance from a star like this.
31:43 Only different degrees of destruction.
31:46 That's not all. This dust bag isn't just
31:48 a grave monument. A cosmic event is
31:51 about to happen. There will be no way to
31:53 describe how strong the shock wave will
31:55 be when the behemoth star finally goes
31:58 supernova. The clash that happens will
32:00 light up the dust like a torch, making a
32:03 nebula that could be seen across worlds.
32:05 It will be a cosmic echo and the last
32:08 burning memorial to a star that was
32:10 never meant to have a
32:14 life. The Hayashi limit. Why the
32:17 behemoth star shouldn't even
32:21 exist. The Hayashi limit would be in
32:24 bold if the world had a set of rules. In
32:27 the study of stars, there is a limit to
32:29 how big a star can get before it loses
32:32 hydrostatic equilibrium. This is the
32:34 careful balance between the pull of
32:36 gravity and the push of heat pressure.
32:39 This limit should be like a wall for red
32:41 super giants like the behemoth star. The
32:44 behemoth star doesn't just lean against
32:46 it though, it gets rid of
32:48 it. Named after Japanese astrophysicist
32:51 Chushiro Hayashi, the Hayashi limit is a
32:54 line on the Herzbrung Russell diagram
32:56 beyond which stars become unstable.
32:59 According to the limit, low mass cool
33:02 stars like red dwarfves and red giants
33:04 can't expand past a certain radius
33:06 without collapsing or shedding mass to
33:08 regain balance. For high mass red super
33:11 giants like the behemoth star, this
33:13 means there's a maximum size they should
33:15 be able to maintain without falling
33:17 apart. But the behemoth star, it doesn't
33:20 follow this general rule. Since its
33:22 diameter is about
33:24 1,540 times that of the sun, it doesn't
33:27 just touch the hayashi limit. It stomps
33:30 all over it. There's no way it can stay
33:33 together, though. Not really. How then
33:35 does a star break one of the most basic
33:37 rules of stellar physics? The dust layer
33:40 and mass loss are the keys. Because the
33:43 behemoth star is so fragile and swollen,
33:46 it keeps losing mass at one of the
33:47 fastest rates ever seen. Its upper
33:50 layers stay cool because of this heavy
33:52 mass loss, which keeps it from falling
33:54 under its own gravity. For now, it's
33:58 basically burning the candle at both
33:59 ends, using outflows and dust
34:02 distribution to keep a building stable
34:04 when it should have already fallen
34:06 apart. Astronomers also speculate that
34:09 the stars rotation, magnetic fields, or
34:12 even a potential binary companion, yet
34:14 unconfirmed, could be influencing its
34:16 bizarre behavior.
34:18 These extra factors might be
34:20 redistributing angular momentum or
34:23 altering internal convection, giving the
34:25 behemoth star a temporary extension on
34:28 its stellar
34:29 lifespan. It's like watching a massive
34:31 building sway violently in the wind and
34:34 somehow not fall. In a way, the behemoth
34:38 star exists in open rebellion against
34:41 theoretical physics. It's a cosmic
34:44 outlaw. a star so massive, so luminous,
34:47 and so unstable that it mocks the
34:50 constraints of the models designed to
34:51 describe it. And that's exactly what
34:54 makes it scientifically invaluable. When
34:57 you find an object that breaks the
34:58 rules, you don't dismiss it, you study
35:01 it harder. Because understanding why it
35:04 doesn't fit might lead you to rewrite
35:06 the rules
35:09 altogether. The star that's falling
35:11 apart, extreme mass loss.
35:16 The behemoth star isn't just big, it's
35:18 also leaking. In a dramatic, slow and
35:21 steady way, this huge star is pulling
35:23 itself apart, throwing off its outer
35:25 layers into space. This is what
35:27 astronomers call mass loss. And the
35:30 behemoth star has one of the worst cases
35:32 ever seen. The star is breaking down
35:35 into its own dust, like a mythical giant
35:38 falling apart from the weight of being
35:40 so big.
35:42 Every star sheds some mass over time.
35:44 Our sun loses around 4.3 million tons of
35:47 material every second through its solar
35:49 wind. That might sound massive until you
35:52 consider the behemoth star, which is
35:54 losing matter at a rate thousands of
35:56 times higher. Observations suggest it
35:58 could be ejecting material at a rate of
36:00 up to 104 solar masses per year, meaning
36:03 it expels the equivalent of Earth's mass
36:05 every few weeks. But where is all that
36:08 material going?
36:10 The answer lies in the massive opaque
36:12 dust envelope that now shrouds the
36:15 star. This dusty cocoon measuring up to
36:18 a lightyear in diameter is made from the
36:20 expelled gases and elements cooled and
36:23 clumped into complex molecular
36:25 structures. It obscures much of the
36:27 stars visible light, rendering it
36:29 ghostly and dim from Earth despite its
36:32 monstrous size and
36:34 luminosity. Not only is this mass loss
36:37 amazing, it's also deadly. The way a
36:40 star is put together is a very fine
36:42 balance. When mass moves away from the
36:45 stars outer layers, it changes the
36:47 pressure differences inside the star
36:49 that keep it from falling in on itself.
36:52 This means that the behemoth stars time
36:54 is almost up. The star is dying faster
36:57 because of its strong, slowly moving
36:58 winds and random outbursts of matter.
37:02 The main reason for this instability is
37:04 that the behemoth star has a swollen
37:06 atmosphere and low surface gravity. The
37:09 star has a very large radius and a very
37:12 low mass which makes it hard for gravity
37:14 to hold on to its upper
37:16 layers. When you add in strong stellar
37:19 pulsations, radiation pressure, and
37:21 maybe magnetic field interactions, you
37:24 get a shell around a star that is always
37:26 boiling over and letting mass escape
37:28 into space.
37:31 These mass loss episodes likely come in
37:33 waves with periods of relative quiet
37:36 followed by violent outbursts. Think of
37:38 it like a dying volcano. Quiet one
37:41 moment, erupting the next. And each time
37:44 it erupts, it loses more of itself to
37:46 the cosmos. As the outer layers thin,
37:50 the core of the behemoth star becomes
37:52 more exposed, inching ever closer to a
37:55 catastrophic gravitational collapse.
37:58 It's also beautiful in a strange way.
38:01 The materials that were thrown out add
38:03 carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and stronger
38:05 elements to the area around them, which
38:08 are essential for life. Galaxy's life
38:11 because stars like the behemoth star
38:12 die. With their last breaths, they leave
38:15 behind the building blocks of planets,
38:17 seas, and even living things that can
38:19 feel pain. But for the Behemoth star,
38:22 it's a slow death that is both beautiful
38:24 and sad. Every pulse of mass that is
38:27 thrown out is a tick on the clock. And
38:29 every dust wave is a whisper that the
38:31 end is almost here. And when it does
38:34 happen, the end could be one of the most
38:36 terrible things everyone has ever
38:40 seen. Star spectra and dust, secrets in
38:43 the
38:46 light. Astronomers figure out what this
38:49 huge star is hiding by using a language
38:51 called stellar spectroscopy. They do
38:53 this by using cameras that are tuned to
38:56 analyze sunlight to peel back its layers
38:58 rather than their hands. They found a
39:01 very complicated mix of radiation, gas,
39:03 and dust that is very different from
39:05 anything else seen in the universe. At
39:08 first glance, the spectrum of the
39:10 behemoth star appears
39:12 chaotic. Its light is reened and dimmed,
39:15 much of it absorbed and scattered by the
39:17 dense dust envelope surrounding the
39:19 star. This makes direct observations in
39:22 the visible spectrum nearly impossible.
39:24 But when astronomers turn to infrared
39:26 and radio wavelengths, the curtain
39:29 lifts. When huge telescopes like those
39:32 at the European Southern Observatory
39:34 split the behemoth stars light with
39:36 prisms and filters, the chemical
39:39 fingerprints of its atmosphere can be
39:41 seen. Each of these spectral lines
39:43 corresponds to a different element or
39:45 molecule, making them like cosmic IDs.
39:50 Scientists have found silicon monoxide,
39:52 SiO, carbon monoxide, CO, and water
39:56 vapor through them. They have also found
39:58 signs of more complicated molecules
40:00 forming in the dust shell. What's
40:02 astonishing is not just the presence of
40:04 these molecules, but the conditions
40:07 under which they exist. The surrounding
40:09 dust cloud isn't just passively
40:11 floating. It's actively radiating
40:13 energy, heated by the intense luminosity
40:16 of the behemoth star.
40:19 Some of this radiation gets remitted in
40:21 infrared wavelengths, creating an eerie
40:23 glow that helps map the structure of the
40:26 envelope. Researchers believe this dust
40:28 shell forms a tooidal donut-shaped
40:31 structure, possibly sculpted by rotating
40:34 mass loss jets or an unseen companion
40:37 star. Temperatures inside this bright
40:40 ring can be anywhere from a few hundred
40:42 to over a,000° Kelvin. These
40:45 temperatures are cool compared to the
40:47 star itself, but they are hot enough for
40:49 dust grains to form and change. In these
40:53 places, the building blocks of planets
40:55 and solar systems of the future are
40:57 formed long before they ever come
41:00 together to form rock or
41:03 flame. Spectroscopy also reveals the
41:06 velocity of materials moving around the
41:08 star. Some spectral lines are
41:10 redshifted, indicating gas flowing away
41:13 from us. Others are blueshifted,
41:15 revealing matter being ejected in our
41:17 direction. These asymmetries suggest
41:20 that the mass loss isn't uniform. The
41:22 star could be shedding material in
41:24 bursts along different axes or
41:27 influenced by magnetic fields or
41:29 rotation. It's interesting that the
41:32 behemoth stars spectrum has emission
41:34 lines that shouldn't be there, at least
41:36 not in this type of star. Based on these
41:39 lines, it looks like shock waves and
41:41 high energy reactions are happening in
41:44 the area around it. It's like the star
41:47 is constantly shaking inside with each
41:49 wave shaking things up and setting off
41:52 strange short-lived chemical
41:55 reactions. Even with all of this going
41:57 on, the behemoth star is still not very
42:00 bright. So much dust surrounds the star
42:03 that it hides the photosphere, which is
42:06 the real surface that we can see. We
42:08 don't see the star itself. What we see
42:11 is a soft glow through a cloud of smoke.
42:14 This is light that has been colored and
42:16 filtered by gas and
42:20 dust. The hunt for companions. Is the
42:23 Behemoth star a binary star?
42:28 We already know that the behemoth star
42:30 is one of the most extreme stars we've
42:32 ever found. But what if it's not the
42:34 only one? Astronomers have been quietly
42:36 wondering for years if this red super
42:38 giant has a partner star that is hidden
42:40 somewhere in its thick cloud of dust. If
42:43 it's true, it would completely change
42:45 everything we know about this monster
42:47 from the sky. From how it is now to what
42:49 will happen to it in the end. The idea
42:52 has been used before. Most of the time,
42:55 massive stars form in groups of two or
42:57 three. Not only are binary star systems
43:00 widespread, they are thought to be the
43:02 standard for how high mass stars form.
43:05 These very large items are held together
43:07 by gravity, sometimes dancing very close
43:10 to each other and sometimes very far
43:13 apart. One thing that makes the behemoth
43:15 star so strange is that its dust
43:17 envelope is hard to see. This makes the
43:20 search more difficult. This dust covers
43:23 space like a blanket, blocking and
43:25 spreading visible light. This makes it
43:27 very hard to observe with regular
43:29 telescopes. Scientists do have some very
43:32 useful tools, though. There may be hints
43:34 in infrared imaging, radio
43:36 interferometry, and spectroscopic
43:38 velocity changes. One of the most
43:40 important signs of a binary system would
43:42 be finding irregular wobbling, which are
43:45 small changes in the behemoth stars
43:47 motion caused by the pull of a partner.
43:49 But so far the evidence has been
43:51 inconclusive. Some studies have reported
43:54 asymmetries in the dust shell, strange
43:56 lopsided structures that could be shaped
43:58 by the presence of a nearby stellar
44:00 object. The tooidal dust formation
44:02 around the behemoth star is particularly
44:05 intriguing. It resembles the kind of
44:07 material outflow we often see in binary
44:09 systems where one stars winds are
44:12 sculpted by another's gravitational
44:13 influence. More recently, observations
44:16 with the Very Large Telescope
44:18 interferometer, VTI, hinted at
44:21 disturbances in the dust envelope that
44:23 could be caused by a nearby object. Some
44:25 models even suggest that if a companion
44:28 star exists, it might be a hot O type
44:30 main sequence star. Small compared to
44:33 the behemoth star, but still massive and
44:36 powerful in its own right. This
44:38 hypothetical partner could be orbiting
44:40 inside the dust cloud, feeding off the
44:42 red super giant's expelled material like
44:44 a parasitic twin. If that's the case,
44:48 the behemoth star would be a binary mass
44:50 transfer system where gas and dust from
44:52 the larger star flow toward the
44:54 companion, potentially fueling accretion
44:57 discs or even triggering X-ray
44:59 emissions. But detecting those X-rays is
45:02 tricky. The behemoth stars dust shell is
45:05 so thick that it likely absorbs most of
45:07 them before they ever
45:09 escape. Another clue might come from
45:11 polarization data. Light from the star
45:14 that's been scattered by dust and gas in
45:17 a particular way. Some of these
45:19 observations suggest a non- spherical
45:22 distribution again raising the
45:24 possibility of external forces shaping
45:26 the flow of matter. No straight images
45:29 of a partner star have been made. It has
45:32 not been proven that there are any
45:34 regular radial velocity trends. It looks
45:37 like the question isn't whether the
45:39 behemoth star could have a friend, but
45:41 whether we can find it through the veil.
45:44 It changes the whole ending if the
45:45 behemoth star is part of a binary
45:47 system. A partner could speed up the
45:50 loss of mass, change the way it goes
45:52 supernova, or even help make a lopsided
45:55 explosion happen. Galactic supernova are
45:58 some of the strongest explosions ever
46:00 seen in the universe. They happen when
46:02 two very large stars in close orbit
46:08 join. When stars defy physics, stellar
46:11 structure, and
46:15 collapse. The behemoth star is a star
46:18 who doesn't follow the rules. Literally
46:20 and figuratively, it's on the edge of
46:22 what we know. It's trying the limits of
46:24 what a star can be without falling
46:25 apart. In many ways, it's a cosmic
46:28 paradox. The star should have already
46:31 fallen or burst by now, but it still
46:33 exists in a state of unstable balance.
46:36 Before we can figure out how the
46:37 behemoth star goes against the laws of
46:39 physics, we need to look at what stellar
46:42 structure really means and what happens
46:44 when it starts to break down. No matter
46:46 how big a star is, it has to balance
46:48 between two huge forces, gravity and
46:52 pressure. The star is always being
46:54 pulled in by gravity, which is trying to
46:56 turn it into a tight ball. On the other
47:00 side is the pressure from nuclear
47:01 fusion, which shoots outward as hydrogen
47:04 atoms in the core fuse into helium,
47:06 releasing energy. For most of a star's
47:09 life, these forces don't change. Not for
47:12 the behemoth star, though. This red
47:15 super giant has pushed its structure to
47:16 a breaking point. Its enormous size,
47:19 over 1,500 times the radius of the sun,
47:23 means its outer layers are incredibly
47:25 diffuse, hanging on by the thinnest
47:27 gravitational thread. Its surface is so
47:29 extended and low density that it's no
47:31 longer a tidy spherical ball of gas.
47:34 Instead, it's more like a pulsing,
47:36 wobbling cloud with parts of its
47:38 atmosphere literally leaking into space.
47:41 Complicating things further is the
47:43 Hayashi limit, a theoretical boundary
47:46 that marks the maximum radius a star of
47:48 a given mass can have while still
47:50 remaining in hydrostatic equilibrium.
47:53 The behemoth star may lie beyond this
47:55 limit, a place where no star should
47:57 stably exist. This suggests that its
48:00 internal structure is unstable, perhaps
48:03 already undergoing convection-driven
48:04 mass ejection or core instabilities that
48:07 will inevitably end in collapse. Inside
48:10 the star, fusion has long since moved
48:13 past hydrogen. Helium is being fused
48:16 into carbon and oxygen, and deeper
48:19 still, heavier elements like neon,
48:21 magnesium, and silicon begin to form in
48:24 quick succession. Each new stage of
48:27 fusion is shorter than the last. A star
48:30 like this can go from silicon fusion to
48:32 collapse in just a matter of days. And
48:34 yet, it's the very mass of the behemoth
48:37 star that prevents it from
48:39 stabilizing. The sheer gravitational
48:42 pressure at its core is overwhelming,
48:44 and it's pushing the star into a zone
48:46 where fusion becomes erratic. The core
48:49 becomes degenerate, meaning pressure no
48:51 longer depends on temperature, but on
48:53 the quantum state of the particles
48:55 within it. At this point, the laws of
48:58 normal thermodynamics start to break
49:00 down. The core can't hold itself up
49:03 against gravity once it hits the Chandra
49:06 Sakar limit, which is about 1.4 times
49:09 the mass of the sun. If the behemoth
49:11 star keeps going in this direction, it
49:14 will experience core collapse, a
49:16 dramatic and violent event in which the
49:18 inner layers contract and then return,
49:20 setting off an unimaginable supernova
49:23 explosion. It's not easy to fall apart,
49:26 though. Pulsations, short-term
49:28 contractions, and swells of the behemoth
49:31 star may happen because of uneven
49:34 pressure and gravity. These pulsations
49:36 could cause huge releases that shed
49:38 solar masses of matter all at once.
49:41 Stars might not turn into black holes if
49:44 they lose enough mass before they fall
49:46 apart. Instead, they might turn into
49:49 neutron stars. If not, it turns into
49:52 something much scarier.
49:56 the end of all things from red giant to
50:01 supernova. There are deaths in every
50:03 star, but some deaths are heard all the
50:05 way across the universe. That ending
50:07 won't be quiet for the behemoth star. It
50:10 will be like a nuclear explosion in the
50:12 universe, releasing so much energy that
50:14 it will shine brighter than whole
50:16 galaxies and turn night into day for any
50:19 neighboring society for a short time. We
50:22 have to go into the heart of a dying
50:23 star to understand how the behemoth star
50:26 ends. The core of the behemoth star
50:29 turns into a nuclear pressure cooker as
50:31 the fusion engine burns through its
50:33 fuel. Helium fusion has given way to
50:35 carbon, neon, oxygen, and finally
50:38 silicon fusion, which is the last step
50:40 before collapse. Hydrogen has been used
50:43 up for a long time. Silicon fusion
50:45 doesn't last very long, though. It might
50:48 only last a few days in a star this big.
50:50 Iron is the most stable element. It
50:53 doesn't release energy when fused. This
50:55 means that once a core is dominated by
50:57 iron, fusion can no longer support the
50:59 star against gravity. The engine stops.
51:02 Gravity wins. The core collapses inward
51:05 at a quarter of the speed of light,
51:07 crushing matter into a state of
51:08 unimaginable density. In just seconds,
51:11 the core becomes a neutron-rich ball
51:14 smaller than a city but heavier than our
51:16 sun. Then comes the rebound. The
51:18 collapsing core slams into itself and
51:20 bounces back outward, sending a shock
51:22 wave through the stars outer layers.
51:25 This shock wave, combined with a flood
51:27 of nutrinos pouring from the core, tears
51:30 the star apart in a supernova explosion.
51:32 The brightness of such an event would be
51:35 staggering. For a few weeks, the
51:37 behemoth stars death would be visible
51:39 across galaxies. On Earth, it might
51:42 outshine the moon, casting shadows at
51:44 night, visible even during the day like
51:47 a false sun. Astronomers would scramble
51:50 to study the supernova's light curve,
51:52 its chemical signatures, and the
51:54 incredible speed of its expanding
51:57 debris. What's left behind depends on
52:00 how heavy the star is after it sheds its
52:02 outer layers. Stellar winds and releases
52:06 could have caused the behemoth star to
52:08 lose enough mass that the core could now
52:10 be stable as a neutron star which is so
52:13 dense that a teaspoon of it would weigh
52:15 billions of tons. Neutron degeneracy
52:18 pressure will not work if there is still
52:20 too much mass though. Then it turns into
52:23 a black hole which is a scar in spaceime
52:26 that you can't see that eats light, time
52:29 and matter. The supernova residue will
52:32 spread out into space, adding heavy
52:35 elements like gold, uranium, and
52:37 platinum to the medium between the
52:40 stars. Everything you have, from your
52:43 bones to the thing you're holding, was
52:45 made when stars like this one
52:47 died. These enormous deaths aren't just
52:50 the end. They're also the start of
52:52 something new, giving galaxies the
52:55 building blocks for
52:56 life.
52:58 Could the behemoth star become a black
53:03 hole? When massive stars die, their
53:06 cores collapse. If the remaining core is
53:08 less than about 2.5 times the mass of
53:10 our sun, it becomes a neutron star held
53:13 up by the quantum pressure of tightly
53:15 packed neutrons. But beyond that
53:18 threshold, if the mass is too great, the
53:21 collapse doesn't stop. Gravity overcomes
53:24 even neutron degeneracy pressure. The
53:27 star shrinks not just to a city-sized
53:29 object, but to a mathematical point, a
53:32 singularity. This is how a black hole is
53:35 born. Where does the behemoth star stand
53:38 then? Its mass is thought to be between
53:40 25 and 40 times that of the sun. Right
53:43 now, some red super giants, like the
53:46 behemoth star, lose a lot of matter as
53:48 they get close to the end of their
53:50 lives. This happens through strong star
53:52 winds and mass loss events. Some of this
53:55 stuff is thrown out in huge clouds of
53:57 dust and gas. The same clouds that are
54:00 now covering the behemoth star in a
54:02 thick cloudy haze. This covering makes
54:04 it hard to get a clear picture of its
54:06 exact weight. But its core is almost
54:09 certainly still too heavy to be a
54:10 neutron star, even if it has lost half
54:12 of its original mass. In other words,
54:15 the behemoth star is a prime black hole
54:18 candidate. But this isn't just a
54:20 theoretical prediction. It's a cosmic
54:22 inevitability.
54:24 Black holes are not rare exceptions.
54:26 They are the logical consequence of
54:28 massive stellar death. And for a red
54:31 hyper giant as extreme as the behemoth
54:33 star, collapsing into a black hole is
54:36 the most probable outcome. When it
54:39 happens, it will be silent. After the
54:42 initial supernova flash fades, the cause
54:44 gravity will win completely. In the
54:47 final moments, spacetime will fold
54:49 inward. Matter will disappear.
54:52 information according to some physicists
54:55 may be lost forever. Though quantum
54:57 theories like Hawking radiation suggest
54:59 that's not the whole story. The new
55:02 black hole could be anywhere from 5 to
55:03 15 solar masses in mass. But its radius
55:06 would be just tens of kilome across.
55:09 That's smaller than most cities. Yet
55:11 with gravity so strong it could bend
55:13 light, slow time, and distort reality
55:16 itself. In the event that it has a
55:18 partner star, it will become opaque.
55:22 Then the black hole might pull matter
55:24 from the nearby star, making a bright
55:26 accretion disc and sending out strong
55:28 X-rays. It could even send relativistic
55:31 jets into outer space, which would shoot
55:33 matter into space at almost the speed of
55:35 light. It's more likely that the
55:37 behemoth stars black hole will just
55:39 drift along in silence, soaking up gas
55:42 and dust as it goes. It will grow slowly
55:45 over eons. It could someday join other
55:48 black holes at the center of a galaxy or
55:50 crash into another black hole, sending
55:52 gravitational waves through the
55:58 universe. UI scooti, another monster,
56:01 but still not the
56:06 largest. Before the name Stevenson 2, 18
56:09 began appearing in astronomy textbooks.
56:12 Before the behemoth star loomed large as
56:14 the shadowy titan in the large melanic
56:17 cloud, there was UI Scooty, the reigning
56:20 record holder for the largest known star
56:22 by radius for several years. If the
56:25 behemoth star is the mysterious colossus
56:27 hidden behind veils of cosmic dust, then
56:30 UI Scooty is the flamboyant emperor
56:33 seated regally in the heart of the Milky
56:35 Way, glowing like a ruby in the galactic
56:37 crown. Located approximately 9,500
56:41 lighty years away in the constellation
56:43 Scootum, UI Scooty is a pulsating red
56:46 super giant, and its size borders on the
56:49 unfathomable. Estimates of its radius
56:52 have placed it at around 1,700 times
56:55 larger than the sun. This would mean
56:57 that if UI Scooty were placed at the
56:59 center of our solar system, its surface
57:02 would extend beyond the orbit of
57:03 Jupiter, devouring Mercury, Venus,
57:06 Earth, Mars, and possibly even Jupiter
57:09 itself. UI Scooty is more than just big.
57:13 It's also incredibly luminous, radiating
57:16 about 340,000 times more light than the
57:19 sun. And yet, despite its size and
57:22 brightness, it is not the most massive
57:24 star in the universe. Not even close. In
57:27 fact, its mass is relatively modest for
57:29 a star of its class, clocking in at only
57:31 around 7 to 10 solar masses. How is that
57:34 possible? The answer lies in how dense
57:37 the stars are. Like many other red super
57:39 giants, UI Scooty has a very low
57:42 density. It's like a cosmic bubble. If
57:45 you stood on the surface of UI Scooty,
57:47 if there is such a thing, you'd be
57:49 floating in a soup of plasma because its
57:51 upper layers are so thin and spread out.
57:53 In some ways, it's more like an
57:55 environment than a star. Instability and
57:58 fast mass loss are also signs of a red
58:00 super giant. It is thought that UI
58:03 Scooty will end its life in a huge
58:05 supernova, but no one is sure when that
58:07 will happen. Some guesses say it could
58:10 happen in the next million years, which
58:12 is pretty much today in cosmic terms.
58:14 The star also serves as a cautionary
58:16 tale for the difficulty of stellar
58:18 measurements.
58:19 Since its discovery and classification
58:21 in the 20th century, subsequent
58:24 observations have caused astronomers to
58:26 revise its estimated size, sometimes
58:29 making it appear smaller than other
58:31 contenders. These fluctuations are due
58:33 to factors like pulsations, dust
58:35 interference, and measurement methods,
58:38 particularly in determining the outer
58:40 edges of its vast tenuous atmosphere.
58:43 So, is UI Scooty still the largest star
58:45 we know? That depends on your metric. In
58:48 terms of radius, it's a record-breaker,
58:51 at least within our own galaxy, but it's
58:53 now being challenged and perhaps
58:55 surpassed by stars like the Behemoth
58:58 Star and Stevenson 2 18, which may be
59:02 even larger and more extreme. UI Scooty
59:05 has earned its place in the Celestial
59:07 Hall of Fame. It reminds us that size
59:10 and mass are not always the same thing
59:12 and that the universe can build giants
59:14 from gases so diffuse their bodies
59:16 barely cling to
59:21 themselves. Vanis Majoris the ghost of a
59:24 former record
59:28 holder. For a long time Vanis Majoris
59:32 was the biggest star known. It was a red
59:34 super giant. It was the biggest star
59:36 before UI Scooty, Stevenson 2, 18 or the
59:40 behemoth star came along. It is now a
59:42 myth covered in twilight, a dying titan
59:45 in the constellation Kynis Major that is
59:47 moving toward the end of its cosmic
59:49 story. Vicis Majoris is a star system
59:52 about 3,900 light-years away that is
59:55 often described as mythical in size. It
59:58 is thought to have a radius over 1,400
60:01 times that of the sun when it is fully
60:03 expanded. This means that if it were
60:06 dropped into the center of our solar
60:07 system, it would reach far beyond
60:09 Jupiter's orbit. It's so big that more
60:13 than 2 billion suns could fit inside it.
60:16 But like many red super giants, its low
60:19 density means it's not as massive as one
60:21 might assume. Its mass has been
60:23 estimated at around 17 times the mass of
60:26 the sun, which is not extraordinary in
60:28 terms of stellar heft. What makes it
60:30 terrifying is how unstable and violent
60:33 it has become. Vy Kynanis Majorus is
60:37 what astronomers call a high mass loss
60:39 star. It's shedding its outer layers at
60:42 a furious pace, losing material into
60:45 space through immense solar winds that
60:47 have created a vast nebula of expelled
60:50 gas and dust around it. This envelope is
60:53 not a soft breeze. It's a hurricane in
60:56 space ejecting matter with more force
60:59 than any natural process on Earth. The
61:02 result is a star that looks like it's
61:03 disintegrating from the outside in.
61:06 There are signs of this amazing process.
61:09 The light from Vy Kanis Majorus flickers
61:12 and dims not because of changes inside
61:14 it but because the clouds of dust
61:16 circling it are moving around. Trying to
61:19 see the star is like trying to see
61:21 through a storm. The clouds change its
61:23 brightness and perceived size, making it
61:26 hard to get accurate measurements. This
61:28 is one reason it stopped being the
61:30 biggest star. Newer readings point to a
61:33 smaller radius than was once thought,
61:34 but no one is sure. In spite of this,
61:38 Vicis Majorus is still a key part of how
61:40 we understand star death. Most likely,
61:43 it is about to explode into a supernova
61:46 or even a hypernova, just like the
61:48 behemoth star and other huge stars. When
61:50 it does, the explosion will likely be
61:52 brighter than the full moon for weeks or
61:54 even months, making it visible from
61:57 Earth. The show will light up the sky
61:59 and give us important information about
62:01 how red super giants die. It's not just
62:04 its size that makes it special. Vy Canis
62:07 Majorus has also made us think about how
62:09 stars die in new ways. It's too heavy to
62:13 live for long and too unstable to stay
62:15 alive, but it's still holding on in one
62:17 of the most extreme star states
62:19 scientists have ever seen. If the
62:21 behemoth star is the beast in the cosmic
62:24 fog, and UI Scooty the fading king, then
62:27 Vy Kanis Majorus is the ghost of glory
62:30 past, a once undisputed monarch now
62:33 veiled in decay and destined for one
62:36 final act of luminous violence. And when
62:38 it goes, it will not die quietly. It
62:41 will go out in a blaze that reshapes
62:43 everything around it. A true death
62:46 worthy of the star it once
62:51 was. Stevenson 2, 18. The only star that
62:56 might be
63:00 bigger. Discovered in the 1970s and
63:03 located roughly 19,000 lighty years away
63:05 in the constellation Scootum. Stevenson
63:08 2 18 is a member of a massive stellar
63:11 cluster known as Stevenson 2. It's one
63:14 of the most luminous red super giants
63:16 we've ever observed, radiating with a
63:18 light output that is at least 440,000
63:21 times brighter than the sun. Although
63:24 some estimates push that number even
63:26 higher depending on the assumptions
63:28 about dust and distance. That being
63:30 said, its mass might not be as big as
63:33 its bulk makes it seem. Like other red
63:36 super giants, Stevenson 2 18 is swollen
63:39 and gravity only holds its upper layers
63:42 in place very loosely. Most likely, it
63:44 has a mass of 40 to 50 solar masses,
63:47 which is pretty big, but not as big as
63:49 some other small stars. This difference
63:51 between mass and size shows how
63:53 misleading volume can be in the
63:55 universe. The star is like a huge
63:57 balloon, vast and puffy, but not as
64:00 heavy as its scary looks would lead you
64:02 to believe. The fact that we don't know
64:04 much about Stevenson 2 18 is what makes
64:07 it so interesting. Because it is so big
64:10 and far away, most of our readings are
64:12 based on indirect methods such as
64:14 brightness, temperature, and theoretical
64:17 models that tell us how far away it is.
64:20 The Milky Way's dust and gas cover some
64:22 of the cluster it lives in, making
64:24 things even less clear. Even with these
64:27 problems, it is still a contender. It
64:30 might be the biggest star that humans
64:31 have ever measured. And it's not just
64:34 big, it's also ancient, at least by the
64:37 standards of massive stars. Stevenson 2
64:40 18 is nearing the end of its life. And
64:43 when it dies, it won't go quietly. It
64:47 could explode as a supernova or even a
64:49 hypernova, potentially leaving behind a
64:52 black hole in its wake. Given its
64:55 massive envelope and proximity to the
64:56 theoretical limits of stellar structure,
64:59 it's a prime candidate for producing one
65:01 of the most energetic stellar deaths in
65:03 the universe. So, is Stevenson 2 18
65:07 truly the largest? The answer is
65:11 maybe. Stella giants are notoriously
65:14 difficult to measure with absolute
65:15 certainty, and changing models can shift
65:18 the rankings. But whether it's the
65:20 absolute biggest or not, Stevenson 2 18
65:23 is a monumental milestone in the story
65:25 of cosmic scale, a flaming colossus that
65:28 embodies the extremes of stellar
65:31 evolution. Muchi, the red king of our
65:35 galaxy. Muchi, which is sometimes called
65:38 the Garnet star, is one of the brightest
65:40 stars in our sky. Its beautiful color
65:43 makes it stand out. This red super giant
65:45 is in the constellation Sephiius and is
65:48 one of the darkest red stars that can be
65:50 seen with the human
65:51 eye. Astronomer William Hershel once
65:54 called it deep garnet because of how
65:57 bright it is. But Musephi is also a huge
66:00 force. Its diameter is thought to be
66:03 about
66:04 1,260 times that of the sun, which makes
66:07 it one of the biggest known stars in the
66:09 Milky Way. A planet called Mufay would
66:13 have a photosphere that is about the
66:14 same size as the paths that Jupiter and
66:17 Saturn take around the sun. Its size
66:19 would be big enough to hold billions of
66:21 Earths. And even though it's not the
66:23 biggest star ever found, it's still a
66:26 giant. MFI is around 6,000 lighty years
66:30 away, and its distance has long been a
66:32 subject of debate, which makes
66:34 calculating its exact size difficult.
66:37 Nevertheless, its enormous luminosity,
66:40 roughly 350,000 times that of the sun
66:43 and relatively cool temperature of
66:45 around 3,500 Kelvin, suggest it is
66:49 nearing the final stages of its life.
66:51 Red super giants like Musfay are old
66:54 stars, having exhausted most of their
66:56 hydrogen fuel and now fusing heavier
66:59 elements in their core. The fact that
67:02 Mufay has lost so much mass over time is
67:04 very interesting.
67:06 It is losing its upper layers into space
67:08 at an incredibly fast rate just like the
67:11 behemoth star and other red giants. This
67:14 creates a stellar wind that moves matter
67:17 through the space between the
67:19 stars. This process not only changes
67:21 what will happen to the star in the
67:23 future, but it also helps recycle
67:26 elements in space.
67:28 Carbon, oxygen, and heavy metals that
67:30 are thrown out will eventually form new
67:32 stars and planets, keeping the cycle of
67:34 life going. It is likely that Mukfe will
67:38 go supernova when it dies, leaving
67:40 behind either a neutron star or a black
67:42 hole. As of right now, it's still a
67:45 bright guardian in our galaxy, a warning
67:47 that monsters live even close to where
67:49 we
67:51 are. The blue super giants burn bright,
67:55 die fast.
67:59 While red super giants like the behemoth
68:02 star and mukfe loom vast and cool,
68:05 there's another class of stellar
68:06 monsters that trade lifespan for
68:08 intensity. Blue super giants. These are
68:11 some of the hottest, brightest, and most
68:13 short-lived stars in the universe,
68:15 burning with such ferocity that they
68:17 often don't survive long enough to grow
68:19 large in size. But in terms of raw
68:21 power, they are unmatched. Imagine a
68:24 star so luminous it can outshine an
68:27 entire galaxy from the right angle. Riel
68:30 is one of the most well-known examples.
68:32 It is the biggest star in Orion and one
68:34 of the sky's brightest stars overall.
68:37 Riel is about 120,000 times brighter
68:40 than the sun and has a surface
68:42 temperature of about 12,000 Kelvin. It
68:46 is a bright blue white star in the sky.
68:49 Riel is very big, but it's only going to
68:52 live for a few million years, a very
68:54 short time in the grand scheme of
68:56 things. Because these stars use up their
68:59 nuclear fuel so quickly, they often
69:01 explode as supernovi before they can get
69:04 as big and cold as red super giants.
69:07 What makes blue super giants so powerful
69:09 is their massive cores. These stars
69:13 often start their lives with masses 20
69:15 to 50 times greater than the sun,
69:17 sometimes even more.
69:19 This enormous mass leads to a
69:21 gravitational pressure so great that
69:23 fusion reactions occur at incredible
69:25 rates, turning hydrogen into helium and
69:28 eventually into heavier elements at
69:30 breakneck speed. The intense radiation
69:34 pressure from these reactions tries to
69:36 blow the star apart, but gravity fights
69:38 back in a precarious balance. When the
69:41 fuel begins to run out, that balance
69:43 tips violently.
69:45 Red giants grow and cool down before
69:48 they die, but blue super giants often
69:50 explode in a very bad way. Some of them
69:53 break into type 2 supernovi, and the
69:56 biggest ones might send out long
69:58 gammaray bursts, which are very powerful
70:00 beams that could wipe out all life on
70:02 Earth if they hit it. Luckily, there
70:05 aren't any blue super giants close
70:07 enough to Earth right now that could
70:09 cause that kind of show. But even so,
70:12 their deaths are very important.
70:15 The stuff that comes out of a blue super
70:17 giant supernova is full of heavy
70:19 elements like the iron, calcium, and
70:22 gold that are in our bodies and on
70:24 Earth. Even though their lives are
70:26 short, these burning giants are like
70:29 alchemists in the universe. They turn
70:31 the lightest elements into the stuff
70:33 that planets and people are made of.
70:36 Astronomers are still looking into these
70:38 stars to learn more about how mass,
70:40 temperature, and brightness affect each
70:42 other in very harsh stellar settings. We
70:46 still don't know a lot, especially about
70:48 the last few seconds before the building
70:50 fell. It's possible that some blue super
70:53 giants will not even go through the
70:55 visible supernova phase. Instead, they
70:58 will collapse straight into black holes
71:00 and disappear in an instant, leaving no
71:03 sign.
71:04 Blue super giants are some of the most
71:06 interesting things in the sky because
71:08 they are so rare, so bright, and so
71:13 dangerous. The yellow hyper giants, rare
71:15 and
71:17 furious. The yellow hyper giants are
71:20 some of the most unstable and poorly
71:22 understood stars in the universe. They
71:24 are like mythical beasts that don't just
71:26 fit into any category, they change it.
71:29 If red super giants are like huge titans
71:32 and blue super giants are like burning
71:34 infernos, then yellow hyper giants are
71:36 like the gods of cosmic storms. They are
71:39 always changing, losing mass and
71:41 standing on the edge of destroying
71:43 themselves. They are very rare. Only a
71:46 few are known to exist in our galaxy.
71:49 Their lack of numbers is more than made
71:51 up for by their mystery and the fact
71:53 that they could go off at any time.
71:55 Yellow hypergiants are an unstable stage
71:58 in the development of stars that are
72:00 usually between the red super giant and
72:03 blue super giant stages. The bright
72:05 color of these stars doesn't last long.
72:08 Their surface temperatures are between
72:10 4,000 and 8,000 Kelvin, which puts them
72:13 in the FNG spectral classes. This is
72:16 similar to how our sun is classified,
72:18 but their brightness is hundreds of
72:20 thousands of times stronger. They are so
72:23 bright that the top layers are barely
72:24 holding on. Huge solar winds and
72:27 dramatic mass ejections are constantly
72:29 ripping them apart. Take Ro Cassiopi for
72:32 instance, one of the best studied yellow
72:34 hyper giants in the Milky Way. It's
72:37 around 500,000 times more luminous than
72:40 the sun and sits roughly 4,000 lighty
72:42 years from Earth. This star has been
72:45 observed undergoing massive outbursts
72:48 during which it ejects several Earth
72:50 masses of material in just a few months.
72:53 These violent episodes dim the star
72:55 significantly as its brightness gets
72:58 choked by the thick clouds of expelled
73:00 gas and dust. It's like watching a star
73:02 try to tear itself apart in slow motion.
73:05 Another notable yellow hyper giant is
73:10 HR5,171, a bloated monster so large it
73:13 would stretch beyond the orbit of
73:14 Jupiter if placed at the center of our
73:16 solar system. It's part of a binary
73:18 system, and astronomers have detected
73:21 mass transfer between the two stars,
73:23 possibly spiraling them toward a future
73:25 collision or merger. An event that could
73:27 result in a supernova, or even something
73:30 more exotic, like a thorn zitkow object,
73:33 a hybrid star formed from a neutron star
73:35 swallowed by a super giant. Why don't we
73:38 see many yellow hyper giants? Because
73:41 this phase is very short, a blink on the
73:44 cosmic clock. It lasts only a few tens
73:46 of thousands of years. Stars that are
73:49 big enough to reach this stage already
73:51 live quickly and die young. At this
73:54 point, they're going through a cosmic
73:56 identity crisis, going back and forth
73:59 between being unstable and collapsing.
74:02 But by looking at these unstable giants,
74:05 scientists learn new things about how
74:07 stars lose mass, how circumstellar
74:10 envelopes form, and how supernova blasts
74:13 start out chaotic. Yellow hyper giants
74:16 often send thick rings of gas into
74:18 space. These nebuli are full of heavy
74:21 elements and dust and help make the
74:23 universe a better place for new stars
74:25 and planets to
74:27 form. Could planets orbit a star like
74:30 the behemoth star?
74:33 The planets that circled the behemoth
74:35 star would have to be very far away from
74:38 it. The star is so big that its surface
74:41 would go beyond Jupiter's orbit if it
74:43 were put in the middle of our solar
74:45 system. Any planet that used to be in
74:47 the inner solar system like Mercury,
74:50 Venus, Earth, or even Mars would be
74:53 destroyed or eaten by the expanding
74:55 stellar atmosphere. Even very far away,
74:58 the heat and radiation that the behemoth
75:00 star gives off would be too much for
75:02 life as we know it to survive. But could
75:05 there be planets farther away in the
75:07 area of gravity outside the giant's
75:09 bright surface? It's possible. Yes.
75:13 There is no rule that says planets can't
75:15 form around a red super giant, but the
75:18 stars unstable mass loss, stellar winds,
75:21 and dust bands make it unlikely that a
75:24 planetary system could stay stable.
75:27 This is especially true for systems with
75:29 moons or orbits that are very delicate
75:31 like ours. The behemoth star is known to
75:34 be losing mass at an extraordinary rate,
75:37 casting off solar material at speeds and
75:39 volumes that dwarf even the most active
75:41 stars in our galaxy. These violent
75:44 stellar winds would exert drag on any
75:46 nearby orbiting bodies, potentially
75:49 sending them into decaying orbits or out
75:51 into interstellar space. Even if planets
75:55 once formed around the star in its
75:56 earlier, more stable years, they may
75:59 have already been swept away by its
76:01 current phase of expansion. Also, the
76:03 gravity field around the behemoth star
76:06 is very different from that of a main
76:07 sequence
76:08 star. The stars low surface gravity and
76:12 huge radius make its gravitational grip
76:14 on close objects not very strong
76:16 compared to its overall mass. This makes
76:19 a thin, unstable zone, a kind of chaotic
76:22 circling shell where dust, debris, or
76:25 rogue planets could stay for a short
76:27 time before being sucked in or thrown
76:29 away. Still, if planets did make it to a
76:32 safe distance, say far beyond the
76:34 distance of Neptune's orbit in our solar
76:37 system, they would see something very
76:39 strange in the sky. The star would be
76:41 the brightest thing in the sky, covering
76:44 a huge part of the viewable dome and
76:46 giving off a deep red light. It would be
76:49 covered in clouds of moving, constantly
76:52 changing stellar dust. There would be no
76:54 real nights, just times of slightly less
76:57 intense red dusk. And while such a world
77:00 might be geologically frozen due to its
77:02 distance, it could still be bathed in
77:05 intense radiation from ultraviolet and
77:07 x-ray flares if the star became
77:10 unstable. If life did exist there, it
77:13 would have to be radically different
77:14 from anything we know. Perhaps shielded
77:17 deep underground or evolving under
77:19 biochemistries we've never imagined.
77:25 What would life be like on a world near
77:27 a super
77:31 giant? Visualize being on a world that
77:34 circles a red super giant like the
77:36 behemoth star. It wouldn't be blue in
77:38 the sky above you. It would be red.
77:40 There wouldn't be any stars or
77:42 constellations to see. There was only a
77:44 huge ocean of red orange light coming
77:46 from a star that took up half the sky.
77:49 Day and night. Don't bother. There is no
77:52 night here. There are only different
77:53 levels of redness. And that's just the
77:56 start. Living near a super giant is very
77:58 different from life on Earth. It goes
78:00 against almost all of the rules we think
78:02 of when we think of a world with life.
78:05 Just the light would be enough to change
78:06 the beat of time. The daily routine of
78:09 light and dark controls everything on
78:12 Earth. From how plants grow to how
78:14 people sleep. In a world that orbits the
78:17 behemoth star, there might not be a dal
78:20 cycle, photosynthesis, or a real
78:22 difference between day and night.
78:25 Now, let's talk about temperature. Even
78:28 at a significant distance, the radiation
78:30 from a super giant would raise surface
78:32 temperatures on nearby worlds to
78:34 unlivable levels. Any atmosphere would
78:37 need to be extremely thick or shielded,
78:40 rich in reflective aerosols or high
78:42 altitude clouds just to avoid being
78:45 stripped away by the intense stellar
78:47 wind.
78:48 The radiation pressure from the behemoth
78:50 star is so high that even dust and gas
78:53 around the star are constantly being
78:55 pushed outward. So any unprotected
78:57 biosphere would be in constant danger of
79:00 erosion or
79:01 sterilization. Let's say that life did
79:04 start to appear in that kind of world.
79:06 We wouldn't do that. Forget people who
79:08 live on the top. Life underground would
79:11 be much more likely. Deep layers of
79:13 rock, thick seas, or thermal vents where
79:16 heat is more stable and away from the
79:18 chaos of the stars above could all be
79:20 places where life could start. It's
79:23 possible that these living things don't
79:24 need sunshine and instead use
79:26 chemosynthesis to get energy from
79:28 minerals or volcano heat. Alternatively,
79:31 organisms might adapt by incorporating
79:34 radiation absorbing pigments into their
79:36 biology. Essentially, living solar
79:38 panels capable of turning extreme
79:40 radiation into usable energy. Some
79:43 extreophile bacteria on Earth already do
79:46 this in small ways. Imagine scaling that
79:49 up for a species that thrives beneath a
79:51 red sun that never
79:53 sets. Then there's the issue of
79:55 planetary orbit. The massive
79:57 gravitational pull of a red super giant
79:59 is complex and unstable. Planets would
80:02 likely be in elongated orbits, creating
80:05 massive seasonal variations. One side of
80:08 the year could be blisteringly hot, the
80:10 other a frozen wasteland. Life would
80:13 have to be incredibly resilient,
80:15 hibernating, adapting, or rapidly
80:17 evolving with each cycle. After that,
80:20 there's the clock above you. It doesn't
80:22 last forever for a star like the
80:24 behemoth star. Our sun's lifespan is
80:26 measured in billions of years, but it is
80:29 only measured in millions. It's like a
80:31 time bomb. It will eventually go
80:34 supernova, sending out a wave of energy
80:36 that will destroy everything within
80:38 dozens of light years. Any planet that
80:41 happened to be close would be destroyed
80:43 and its atoms would be thrown into space
80:45 where they would help make new stars and
80:47 planets. Could there be life close to a
80:50 super giant? In theory, yes, but only if
80:53 it's deep, protected from radiation, and
80:55 doesn't last long. It would live under a
80:58 sky of doom, though, and always know if
81:00 it could know that its life was short,
81:03 like a spark burning in the shadow of
81:05 something too big to be
81:08 real. Radiation hellscape. Why these
81:11 stars are deadly to
81:15 life. If a red super giant like the
81:18 behemoth star seems all inspiring from
81:20 afar, it becomes terrifying up close,
81:22 not because of its size alone, but
81:24 because of the unrelenting storm of
81:26 radiation it unleashes. These massive
81:28 stars are not peaceful giants. They are
81:31 furnaces of chaos, broadcasting waves of
81:33 deadly energy across the cosmos. Any
81:36 attempt at survival near them would be
81:38 like trying to build a home next to an
81:40 open nuclear reactor without the
81:42 protective shielding. Let's start with
81:45 ultraviolet radiation. Massive stars
81:47 emit enormous quantities of it. While
81:50 our sun emits UV light as well, the
81:52 Earth's atmosphere filters most of it
81:54 out. Near the behemoth star, the sheer
81:57 intensity of UV radiation would strip
81:59 away planetary atmospheres, rendering
82:01 them sterile and lifeless in short
82:03 order. There's no ozone layer that could
82:06 possibly keep up. If Earth orbited such
82:09 a star at a similar distance as it does
82:11 the sun, life would be reduced to carbon
82:13 ash in seconds, then there's X-ray and
82:16 gamma ray radiation, the truly lethal
82:18 kind. As the behemoth star nears the end
82:21 of its life, its unstable core will
82:24 churn out higher energy emissions. These
82:26 rays don't just kill cells, they destroy
82:29 DNA on contact, making complex life
82:32 almost impossible. Exposure to these
82:35 would result in radiation poisoning,
82:38 sterilization of entire ecosystems, and
82:41 complete atmospheric
82:43 ionization. There's no protection
82:44 without a planetary scale magnetic field
82:47 orders of magnitude stronger than
82:48 Earth's. And even then, it might not be
82:51 enough. But the danger doesn't just come
82:54 from the direct emissions. Stellar
82:56 winds, which are made up of charged
82:58 particles thrown out at very high
83:00 speeds, would hit any planets close and
83:02 damage them. Over time, these winds
83:05 could wear away at a planet's
83:06 atmosphere, which is what keeps space
83:08 weather out. Cosmic rays, sun particles,
83:12 and plasma storms can all take away a
83:14 planet's atmosphere molecule by molecule
83:17 once that layer is gone. Because the
83:19 behemoth star has such a huge dust
83:21 envelope, it hides many of its own risks
83:24 behind a cloud. A tooidal donut-shaped
83:27 cloud of dust and gas is formed when the
83:30 star sends out so much matter. This
83:32 might provide some protection, but it
83:34 has two sides. That cloud spreads and
83:37 returns radiation, making some areas
83:40 more exposed to it instead of protecting
83:42 them. It's like a hall of mirrors for
83:44 death rays from
83:45 stars. Super giants aren't stable. They
83:48 pulse, grow, shrink, and spew out huge
83:52 flares. These bursts can temporarily
83:54 increase the amount of radiation by
83:56 hundreds or thousands of times. A single
83:59 star tantrum could wipe out a world that
84:01 may have become used to the background
84:03 radiation. It's important to note that
84:05 the behemoth star is in the large
84:07 melanic cloud, which is a galaxy that is
84:10 part of the Milky Way, but has a
84:12 different makeup of chemicals than our
84:14 own. In other words, the radiation
84:16 output might not act the way we think it
84:19 will based on models from the area. This
84:22 behavior by aliens adds unknowns to
84:24 models of radiation, which makes these
84:27 stars even harder to predict and more
84:29 dangerous for everything close. In a
84:32 universe where life clings to fragile
84:34 stability, red super giants like the
84:36 behemoth star are the destroyers. They
84:39 are cosmic final bosses radiating death
84:42 across the void, not out of malice, but
84:45 because of their sheer titanic nature.
84:48 Life, as we understand it, does not
84:50 survive in their
84:53 shadow. Orbiting a monster,
84:56 gravitational tidal forces explained.
85:02 If you lived in orbit around a star like
85:03 the Behemoth star, you would be trapped
85:05 by a cosmic beast that would twist,
85:08 stretch, and crush anything that got too
85:10 close. A super giant like the behemoth
85:13 star has such strong gravitational pull
85:15 that any close object would be sucked
85:17 into a violent dance of distortion and
85:20 decay. This is in contrast to our sun
85:23 whose gravitational pull keeps the
85:25 seasons and tides steady. Planets are
85:28 held in place by gravity. But gravity
85:30 also has effects on the inside of
85:32 planets. The behemoth star has such a
85:34 strong gravitational field that it would
85:36 pull a planet out of its orbit and even
85:39 pull the planet itself if it was close
85:41 enough. This is what tidal forces are.
85:44 The difference in how much gravity pulls
85:46 on different parts of a person. It can
85:49 be seen with Earth and the moon. The
85:51 part of Earth that is closer to the moon
85:54 has a stronger gravitational pull which
85:56 makes the waves in the oceans. Now
85:59 imagine that same effect magnified a
86:01 thousand times. Near the behemoth star,
86:04 a planet's solid crust could be
86:06 stretched and compressed over and over,
86:08 causing severe tectonic activity. Think
86:11 super earthquakes, global volcanic
86:13 eruptions, and possibly tidal heating so
86:16 intense that the planet's core might
86:18 stay in a perpetual molten state.
86:21 We've seen this with Jupiter's moon Io,
86:23 which is constantly reshaped by
86:25 Jupiter's gravity. And that's a much
86:27 smaller example. But the nightmare
86:30 doesn't end there. If a planet orbits
86:32 too close to this super giant star, it
86:35 risks falling into the roach limit, the
86:38 minimum distance at which a celestial
86:40 body can orbit without being torn apart
86:42 by tidal forces. Get too close and the
86:45 planet could be shredded into rings of
86:47 debris. Its matter pulled away in
86:50 streams like ribbons around a mapole of
86:53 destruction. A planet's orbit might not
86:56 stay stable even if it stays outside the
86:58 roach limit. Not only is the behemoth
87:01 star very big, but it is also dropping
87:03 mass very quickly because of radiation
87:05 and star winds. Its gravitational pull
87:08 on things in its orbit changes as it
87:10 loses mass. This means that planetary
87:13 orbits can move, spiral outward or
87:16 become eccentric which means they are
87:18 stretched out like ovals. These changing
87:21 orbits cause big changes in the
87:22 temperature which makes it impossible to
87:25 live there for a long time. Orbital
87:27 resonance is another problem. This is
87:30 when more than one moon or planet
87:31 interacts gravitationally with the main
87:33 star and with each other. In a system
87:36 around a star as heavy and unstable as
87:38 the behemoth star, these resonances
87:41 would be highly unstable and could throw
87:43 planets out of the system or into the
87:45 star. Don't forget about accretion rings
87:48 either. A planet could get stuck in the
87:50 accretion disc, which is a ring of
87:52 superheated gas and dust that swirls
87:55 around the behemoth star as it nears the
87:57 end of its life and starts to collapse
87:59 into a supernova or black hole. That
88:02 climate would kill the world with
88:03 radiation and bring it closer and closer
88:06 to being destroyed. All of this brings
88:08 to light a scary truth. Circling the
88:11 behemoth star is not only dangerous,
88:14 it's almost impossible to do without
88:16 being destroyed, sterile, or thrown into
88:18 space. If a planet gets too close, it
88:22 gets caught in a trap of beautiful but
88:23 strong gravity. And if life ever did
88:26 appear in such a system, it would rest
88:28 on a delicate balance that the universe
88:30 doesn't care much
88:33 [Music]
88:35 about. Watching a star collapse from
88:38 nearby hypothetical
88:43 scenario. Think about this. You live on
88:46 a far away world, maybe near the edge of
88:48 a solar system with the behemoth star as
88:51 its main star. You are far enough away
88:53 that the red super giant 280 0000 time
88:58 solar luminance won't burn you alive,
89:01 but close enough that it looks like a
89:02 bloated blood red globe in the sky with
89:05 a surface that sparkles like boiling
89:07 oil. It's been on for decades or even
89:10 hundreds of years. However, things start
89:13 to change. It starts out slowly with a
89:16 flash that sounds like a heartbeat
89:18 stalling in the dark. The star dims a
89:20 little and then gets brighter in a
89:22 random way. Your first thought is that
89:24 it's just one of its normal pulsations.
89:27 After all, super giants do that. But
89:30 this time is different. The gaps get
89:32 smaller. When the stars upper layers
89:34 start to fall off more quickly, clouds
89:36 of gas and dust start to blow off like
89:38 cosmic steam. Readings from spectroscopy
89:41 scream of catastrophic
89:44 instability. It has started to fall
89:46 apart. At this point, your skies go from
89:49 beautiful to
89:51 terrifying. Imagine looking up to see
89:53 the behemoth stars outer atmosphere
89:55 literally accelerating outward,
89:57 expanding visibly even over the course
90:00 of hours or days. The star begins to
90:03 swell, not gracefully, but chaotically.
90:06 Flares explode across its surface.
90:08 Supertorrms erupt and magnetic fields
90:10 twist into massive loops large enough to
90:12 engulf entire planets. The night is no
90:15 longer dark. The super giant is brighter
90:18 than any sun, even at your extreme
90:20 distance. In a single moment of absolute
90:23 violence, the core of the behemoth star
90:26 collapses inward faster than light can
90:28 escape the surrounding material. The
90:31 collapse halts not with peace, but with
90:33 a rebounding fury. The result, a
90:37 supernova of such ferocity that it
90:39 temporarily outshines the entire galaxy.
90:42 You're not watching it on a telescope.
90:44 You're watching it cast double shadows
90:46 behind every object around you. Shock
90:49 waves are sent out into space and if
90:51 you're even slightly close within a few
90:54 dozen light years, say the end of the
90:56 world is about to happen. The strong
90:59 burst of gamma rays goes through your
91:01 environment and destroys all
91:03 electronics, DNA, and any technology
91:06 that might still be useful. If your
91:08 planet has a magnetosphere, it will be
91:10 very compressed, which will boil off
91:12 your top atmosphere. Not if it doesn't.
91:15 The surface has been cleaned always. But
91:18 say you're really, really far away.
91:20 Hundreds of light years away. You make
91:22 it. Not really. Your people have
91:24 changed. You wait months to see what
91:26 happens next. For months, you see a
91:28 bright cloud and the skeletal remains of
91:30 a star that was once thought to be
91:32 impossible. Gravitational waves are
91:35 picked up by instruments.
91:37 If the behemoth star fell into a black
91:39 hole, those waves would have gone
91:41 through your bones and changed the shape
91:43 of spaceime around you for a split
91:45 second. The giant had been around for
91:47 millions of years, longer than your
91:49 society, and maybe even longer than life
91:52 on your world itself. It's gone now, but
91:55 from its death comes life. The heavy
91:58 material that was thrown out starts to
92:00 spread through space, making the
92:02 building blocks for new stars, planets,
92:04 and stars. It would not be a quiet or
92:07 beautiful death to watch a star like the
92:09 behemoth star fall apart from close by.
92:12 It would be a dramatic, memorable, and
92:15 all inspiring ending that would show
92:17 that even the end of something huge can
92:20 lead to new and amazing
92:24 things. A light-year shadow living in
92:27 the behemoth stars
92:29 umbra.
92:31 Consider a star that is so huge and
92:34 bright that it leaves a shadow a
92:35 lightyear long just by being there. With
92:38 a dust package that covers almost 5.88
92:40 trillion miles, the behemoth star
92:43 doesn't just shine, it rules. What would
92:46 it be like to live in its umbra, the
92:48 shadow it throws on the rest of the
92:50 universe? Astronomers use the word umbra
92:53 to describe the darkest part of a shadow
92:55 where no light can get through. On
92:58 Earth, we think of it when we see
92:59 eclipses. But in the case of the
93:01 behemoth star, the umbra isn't a
93:03 temporary event. It's a permanent area
93:06 of darkness whose thick Taurus shaped
93:09 dust covering blocks light from
93:11 astronomically far away. Let's say your
93:14 planet exists in a system just behind
93:16 this dusty cloak tucked into the cosmic
93:19 veil. You wouldn't see the full flaming
93:22 face of the behemoth star. Instead, the
93:25 sky might glow with a dull crimson
93:27 twilight, not from direct starlight, but
93:30 from scattered photons refracted and
93:32 diffused through layers of interstellar
93:34 dust. Day and night would blur together
93:37 with everything drenched in a reddish
93:39 hue like a planet forever suspended in
93:41 the final moments of sunset. The
93:44 temperature would be oddly mild. You're
93:47 in the proximity of a stellar inferno,
93:49 yet the dust and gas block much of the
93:51 heat. Your world might orbit a secondary
93:54 star smaller and more manageable because
93:57 orbiting the behemoth star directly,
93:59 even at great distances, would be like
94:01 setting your planet next to a nuclear
94:03 blast. But even your sky would not be
94:06 free of the behemoth stars influence.
94:08 Its radiation would leak in around the
94:10 edges, its gravity gently tugging at
94:13 your solar system, altering orbits over
94:15 millennia. What's above would be the
94:18 real show, though. At the horizon, or
94:20 maybe even taking up half the sky, you'd
94:23 see the bent shape of a giant covered in
94:25 dust, filled with glowing gas and debris
94:28 that pulsed slowly like a god's last
94:30 breath. Auroras may shine at your poles,
94:34 but not from your star. Instead, they
94:36 may be caused by the stellar wind and
94:38 magnetic chaos coming off of the
94:40 behemoth star. Meteor showers could
94:42 happen often with pieces of the dust
94:44 disc falling like rain. It would be
94:47 scary and holy in your myths. This isn't
94:50 a star far away. This is a monster in
94:53 the sky that lives and breathes. Its
94:56 heart is hidden by a cloud of dust. And
94:58 it talks to us through X-rays and radio
95:01 waves. Priests, doctors, and artists
95:03 would all say, "Is this a god? A threat?
95:06 A dying giant ready to blow up?"
95:09 Technologically, you'd have evolved
95:11 under this shadow. Your telescopes
95:13 designed to pierce dust would be
95:15 exceptional. Infrared astronomy would be
95:17 your first language. You might detect
95:20 the slow collapse of the star in real
95:22 time centuries or even millennia before
95:25 the final death nail, watching as light
95:27 curves and stutters around the enveloped
95:30 core. Perhaps you'd even send probes
95:32 into the cloud, risking their
95:34 annihilation for one more piece of data.
95:37 Even when the behemoth star finally
95:39 dies, like when it goes supernova or
95:42 hypernova, there won't be a lot of
95:44 light. Instead, there will be too much
95:47 difference. Your umbra would turn into a
95:49 huge energy wave that would blind you.
95:52 What was just a shadow would get
95:54 brighter and brighter until it reached
95:55 the
95:56 sky. It wouldn't be safe to live in the
95:58 lightear shade of the behemoth star. It
96:01 wouldn't be calm, but people would never
96:04 forget it. You would be a society that
96:06 was shaped by being close to the
96:07 universe's biggest star, a family raised
96:10 by a
96:13 giant. The final flash, supernova or
96:18 hypernova. It will not be a quiet end
96:20 for the behemoth star. The fire in the
96:23 hearts of stars is what makes them live
96:25 or die. When the fire goes out, gravity
96:27 takes over, which is very bad for super
96:30 giants like the behemoth star. But not
96:32 every star death is the same. Some stars
96:36 drift off into the night. Some, like the
96:38 behemoth star, explode so powerfully
96:41 that the sound can be heard across
96:42 worlds. The question isn't if the
96:45 behemoth star will die or not. When it
96:48 finally ends, it will either be a
96:50 supernova or a hypernova, which is even
96:54 scarier. The question is how violently
96:56 it will do so. There is already a lot of
96:59 information about how strong supernovi
97:01 are. It happens when a very large star
97:04 runs out of nuclear fuel. Without fusion
97:07 to push outward pressure, the stars
97:09 center falls apart in a very short time
97:11 due to its own gravity. This quick
97:14 collapse sends shock waves outward that
97:16 destroy the stars outer layers,
97:18 releasing more energy than the sun will
97:20 ever have in its 10 billionyear
97:22 lifetime.
97:24 For a star the size of the behemoth
97:26 star, 1,500 times the sun's radius, the
97:30 scale is nearly unimaginable. If it dies
97:33 as a type 2 supernova, the explosion
97:35 would outshine its entire host galaxy
97:37 for a short time. That's more light than
97:40 billions of stars combined. The blast
97:43 wave would travel through the
97:44 surrounding dust envelope and
97:46 interstellar space at thousands of
97:48 kilometers/s, tearing apart everything
97:50 in its path, compressing gas clouds, and
97:53 possibly triggering new waves of star
97:55 formation in distant systems. But the
97:58 behemoth star might go on to something
98:00 else. because it has lost so much mass
98:04 is very bright and is so big. It is a
98:06 good option for a hypernova which is an
98:09 even rarer and stronger type of
98:11 explosion. A hypernova is 100 times more
98:14 powerful than a regular explosion. Long
98:17 duration gammaray bursts are beams of
98:19 radiation so strong that they could
98:21 destroy planets across light years if
98:23 they were pointed directly at them. They
98:26 are linked to the birth of stellar mass
98:28 black holes. If the behemoth star goes
98:31 hypernova, it will release a burst of
98:34 energy equal to 10 circumflex 45
98:37 jewels, that's the same amount of energy
98:39 that the sun gives off over 10 billion
98:42 years, but in less than a minute. The
98:44 flash would be visible from the farthest
98:46 reaches of space. The blast that would
98:49 follow would clear hundreds of light
98:51 years of space of cosmic dust, changing
98:54 the shape of the part of the large
98:56 melanic cloud where the star is located.
98:59 Astronomers on Earth or on any world
99:01 watching from a safe distance would
99:03 witness a spectacle not seen in recorded
99:06 history. A cosmic fireworks finale that
99:09 marks the end of a giant. In fact, some
99:12 scientists speculate that if the
99:14 behemoth star exploded today, its light
99:16 might already be on the way. A ghost
99:18 message from a star already gone. What
99:21 comes next? Depending on how much mass
99:24 is left over after the explosion, the
99:26 core that falls apart could either
99:28 become a neutron star or a black hole. A
99:31 neutron star is so dense that a teaspoon
99:34 of its matter weighs billions of tons.
99:37 If a black hole is born, it might have a
99:39 mass and spin that go against what we
99:42 know about physics. This is especially
99:44 true if the behemoth star had a partner
99:47 star that gave it rotational momentum.
99:52 gammaray bursts and the cosmic death
99:56 beam. A gammaray burst or GRB is the
100:00 most dangerous thing that could happen
100:02 in the universe if the last few seconds
100:04 of the behemoth star end in a hypernova.
100:07 These bursts last only a second or two,
100:10 but are unbelievably strong.
100:13 If one happened in our galaxy and was
100:15 aimed straight at Earth, it would be
100:17 able to remove our atmosphere in seconds
100:19 and wipe out all life on
100:21 Earth. Gammaray bursts are not
100:24 explosions in the traditional sense.
100:27 They are focused beams of pure energy
100:29 launched at near light speed in two
100:32 opposite directions from a collapsing
100:33 star. They occur when the stars core
100:37 collapses into a black hole. And angular
100:40 momentum combined with magnetic fields
100:43 channels the collapsing material into
100:45 twin relativistic jets that pierce
100:47 through the dying stars body and shoot
100:49 into space like cosmic sniper fire.
100:52 These bursts last anywhere from
100:54 milliseconds to several minutes. In that
100:57 short span, they can release more energy
100:59 than the sun will produce in its entire
101:01 lifetime. The reason for their intensity
101:04 is the concentration, focused energy
101:07 like a death laser rather than the
101:09 spherical detonation of a typical
101:12 supernova. A red super giant with a size
101:15 nearly 1,500 times that of the sun with
101:19 a massive unstable envelope of gas and
101:22 dust. If it collapses directly into a
101:24 black hole and channels its final fury
101:27 into a GRB, the result would be a beam
101:30 stretching across galaxies. potentially
101:32 visible billions of light years away. We
101:35 don't yet know if red super giants like
101:37 the behemoth star can produce
101:39 longduration gammaray bursts. Most known
101:42 GRBs come from stripped envelope stars,
101:45 massive stars that have shed their outer
101:47 hydrogen layers, often becoming wolf
101:50 rayed stars. The behemoth star still has
101:53 a significant hydrogen envelope which
101:55 might choke the jet before it escapes.
101:58 However, recent studies suggest that if
102:00 the star is rotating fast enough and if
102:03 magnetic fields are strong and well
102:05 aligned, a GRB could still burst through
102:08 the envelope. If it did happen, it would
102:11 start with a flash of high energy gamma
102:13 radiation that can't be seen by humans,
102:16 but is deadly to living things. If the
102:19 beam hit a world, it would remove the
102:21 ozone from the air, expose a lot of
102:23 people to radiation, and cause the
102:25 world's ecosystem to
102:27 fail. The behemoth star is safe because
102:30 it lives in the large melanic cloud,
102:33 which is more than 160,000 lighty years
102:36 away. Even if it sent a GRB straight at
102:39 Earth, it probably wouldn't be strong
102:41 enough to kill us. Still, even from that
102:44 safe distance, seeing such an event
102:46 would be a once- in a civilization
102:48 chance for scientists. Waves of data
102:50 would fill the radio spectrum.
102:52 Telescopes that use infrared, X-ray,
102:54 optical, and radio waves could pick up
102:56 the afterglow, which is the glow that
102:58 lasts long after the main burst. This
103:01 would let scientists see how star titans
103:04 die, fall apart, and turn into black
103:06 holes in a way that has never been done
103:08 before. Perhaps gammaray bursts might
103:11 shape the evolution of life across the
103:14 universe. Some theories suggest they've
103:16 already wiped out life on Earth at least
103:19 once, possibly triggering the
103:21 Ordovvician extinction 450 million years
103:24 ago. If so, then GRBs aren't just
103:27 stellar death beams. They are cosmic
103:29 gardeners, pruning branches of life
103:31 across galaxies, clearing the way for
103:34 new ecosystems to
103:37 rise. From Titan to remnant, neutron
103:41 star or black
103:45 hole. A star doesn't just disappear when
103:48 it dies. It leaves something behind. A
103:50 last form signed by the death of a
103:53 stellar giant like the behemoth star
103:54 isn't just exciting. It's what global
103:56 change looks like. What does the end of
103:58 a monster like that look like? What's
104:00 left after the last fire? There are two
104:03 main types of stars that could be the
104:05 behemoth star. Neutron stars or black
104:07 holes. Both are strange, mysterious, and
104:10 extreme, but they show very different
104:12 ways that stars die. It is very
104:14 important for scientists to know which
104:16 direction the behemoth star will take in
104:18 order to learn more about this star and
104:20 the life cycles of all massive stars in
104:22 the universe. Let's start with the
104:25 neutron star. These are the densest
104:28 known objects that don't collapse into
104:30 black holes. Imagine the mass of the sun
104:33 squeezed into a sphere the size of a
104:35 city. A single teaspoon of neutron star
104:38 material would weigh as much as a
104:40 mountain. These remnants are made almost
104:42 entirely of neutrons packed so tightly
104:45 together that atomic structures cease to
104:47 exist. If the behemoth star ended up as
104:50 a neutron star, it would mean that the
104:52 star had enough mass to collapse its
104:54 core, but not so much that gravity could
104:56 overcome the pressure created by the
104:58 neutrons themselves. That pressure,
105:01 called neutron degeneracy pressure, is
105:03 what holds the remnant up against the
105:05 crushing pull of gravity. But the
105:07 behemoth star might be too big for that
105:09 to happen. With a diameter more than
105:11 1,500 times that of the sun and a dusty
105:15 envelope that could hold several solar
105:17 masses of material that has been thrown
105:19 out, the behemoth star may very well
105:21 collapse into a black hole. A black hole
105:24 is a singularity which is a point of
105:27 infinite density surrounding by an event
105:29 horizon from which nothing, not even
105:31 light, can escape. This is where things
105:33 start to go wrong. As a black hole, the
105:36 behemoth star will be one of only a few
105:38 things that can change reality. itself.
105:40 It also wouldn't be a normal black hole
105:43 if it holds on to a lot of mass when it
105:45 collapses. It might turn into a stellar
105:47 mass black hole or even a primordial
105:49 intermediate mass black hole, which is a
105:52 very rare and badly understood type of
105:54 object. What makes a difference is how
105:56 much mass is lost before the box falls
105:59 apart. Through its star winds and dust
106:02 environment, the behemoth star is
106:04 already losing huge amounts of matter. A
106:08 neutron star might still be possible,
106:10 but it is not likely if enough of that
106:12 mass is thrown out before the core falls
106:15 apart. But if there is still too much
106:17 mass, there is no way back. The weight
106:20 of the stars core will pull it into a
106:22 deep hole from which not even
106:24 information can be found. The moment of
106:27 failure would be terrible. The core
106:29 would collapse in milliseconds,
106:31 releasing more energy in that 1 second
106:34 than the sun does in its whole 10
106:36 billionyear life. As the shock wave
106:38 spreads, it creates a supernova or a
106:42 hypernova if the collapse is strong
106:43 enough, which is one of the most
106:45 powerful events in the universe. Either
106:48 a magnetic neutron star spinning
106:51 hundreds of times per second, or a new
106:53 black hole hiding in the debris would be
106:55 left behind. Because the behemoth star
106:59 is over 160,000 lighty years away, we're
107:03 seeing it as it was when giant mammoths
107:05 walked the earth. We might never see it
107:08 happen in real time. We will be able to
107:12 see its end fate one day, maybe
107:14 tomorrow, or a million years from
107:18 now. Stardust legacy seeding the
107:21 universe with elements.
107:25 The death of a massive star like the
107:27 behemoth star is not an ending. It's a
107:29 beginning in disguise. While we often
107:32 marvel at the size and spectacle of
107:34 these giants, their true legacy is
107:36 quieter, invisible, and absolutely
107:38 fundamental to everything we are. Every
107:41 atom of calcium in your bones, every bit
107:43 of iron in your blood, every molecule of
107:45 oxygen you breathe was forged in the
107:48 heart of a dying star.
107:50 Nucleiosynthesis is the name of this
107:52 process and it's like the world's
107:54 biggest magic trick. Things that are
107:56 lighter become heavier as a star grows.
107:59 The first thing to fuse is hydrogen.
108:02 Next come helium, carbon, oxygen, neon,
108:05 magnesium, and silicon. In a supernova
108:08 or hypernova explosion, on the other
108:10 hand, the rarest and strongest elements
108:12 are made in a minute or two.
108:14 U235, platinum, and gold are these. As
108:17 the core finally breaks apart, shock
108:20 waves are sent out into space that smash
108:22 atoms together so hard that they make
108:24 new elements. When the behemoth star is
108:27 over, it will change into one of these
108:29 space forges. It'll launch billions of
108:31 tons of stuff into space, which will
108:34 fill up the area between the stars.
108:36 Things like these will keep moving for a
108:38 very long time because of gravity and
108:40 the winds of stars. In the end, they
108:43 will be used to make new planets, moons,
108:46 stars, and living things. It's poetic.
108:49 The very act of dying gives birth to new
108:51 potential. And it's not just theory.
108:53 We've seen the evidence. Supernova
108:56 remnants like the Crab Nebula or
108:57 Cassiopia a reveals stunning clouds of
109:00 expelled stellar material. These clouds
109:02 glow in every wavelength. X-rays,
109:05 ultraviolet visible light, each hue
109:07 revealing a different element scattered
109:09 into the void. Over time, this matter
109:11 clumps, cools, and begins the cycle a
109:14 new. It's also a timeline. Our own solar
109:18 system was born from the ashes of stars
109:20 that came before. The sun is a second or
109:23 third generation star formed in a nebula
109:26 enriched by supernova. The Earth, the
109:29 planets, even the water in our oceans.
109:32 They all contain elements that once
109:34 burned in stars now long gone. The
109:37 behemoth stars destiny then is to seed
109:39 the future. Its atoms will become part
109:42 of stars not yet born in galaxies not
109:45 yet formed around planets we may never
109:47 see. It is a single act in a chain
109:50 reaction stretching back to the dawn of
109:52 time and forward to the heat death of
109:54 the
109:55 cosmos. To understand the terrifying
109:57 power of the biggest stars is also to
110:00 understand our place in the universe. We
110:03 are not separate from them. We are not
110:05 distant
110:08 observers. Supernova remnants. Nebula of
110:11 the
110:13 gods. A big star like the behemoth star
110:16 doesn't just disappear into thin air
110:18 when it dies. It explodes fiercely,
110:21 wildly, and magnificently, sending shock
110:24 waves across the galaxy and carving a
110:26 work of art out of light and color into
110:28 the void. It doesn't leave behind a
110:30 grave, but a monument, part of a
110:33 supernova. These are the nebula of the
110:36 gods. They are huge, painted in light
110:39 emmitting pieces of dead stars. A
110:41 supernova residue is what's left over
110:44 after a disaster. The explosion sends
110:46 the stars outer layers flying off at up
110:48 to 30,000 km/s. This makes a bubble of
110:52 charged gas and dust that can reach
110:54 hundreds of light years away. There may
110:56 be a neutron star or black hole at the
110:59 center, but the galaxy around it is what
111:01 draws our attention and inspires our
111:04 creativity. These pieces are found in
111:06 many places. Some, like the Veil Nebula,
111:10 shine in ultraviolet and X-ray light
111:12 like torn silk. Some, like Tao supernova
111:15 remnant, are surprisingly round and grow
111:17 outward in perfect deadly order. Chinese
111:20 scientists saw the Crab Nebula form from
111:22 a supernova in 1054.
111:25 It is still growing with its ionized gas
111:28 strands making a kaleidoscope of color
111:30 and swirling motion. Not only are these
111:32 buildings beautiful, they are also very
111:35 important. Scientists can learn a lot
111:38 from the remains of supernovi. Their
111:40 light sends data about the elements that
111:42 were made in the blast like iron,
111:45 nickel, cobalt, and more. Their shapes
111:48 show us how the star that burst was not
111:50 balanced inside. Their energy affects
111:53 gas clouds nearby which starts the
111:55 formation of new stars. In this way, the
111:58 death of a star directly leads to the
112:00 birth of new stars, keeping the big
112:02 circle going. Astronomers should be able
112:05 to see the supernova residue from the
112:08 behemoth star. It is likely to be one of
112:11 the biggest and most exciting ever seen.
112:13 Since the behemoth star is in the large
112:16 melanic cloud, which is far from our
112:18 galaxy, but close enough to watch in
112:20 detail, its death would give us a new
112:22 way to look at how ultra massive stars
112:24 explode. Many types of light, from
112:27 X-rays to radio waves, would be able to
112:30 see its remains for tens of thousands of
112:32 years. Each type of light would tell a
112:34 different part of the story. The dust
112:36 and gas would finally mix with the
112:38 material between the stars, creating new
112:41 stars, worlds, and maybe even life. We
112:44 tend to think of death as an end, but in
112:47 astronomy, it's often the opposite.
112:50 Supernova remnants are the fingerprints
112:52 of creation scattered across the galaxy,
112:55 reminding us that from destruction comes
112:58 new order. These divine nebuli are not
113:01 just reminders of power. They are
113:03 promises of what comes
113:07 next. The role of giant stars in
113:10 galactic
113:13 evolution. When we look up at night, we
113:16 usually notice the stars, those bright
113:18 points, the constellations, and the
113:21 planets that move around them. But the
113:23 truth is that stars are more than just
113:25 pretty things in space. They bring about
113:28 change and form galaxies.
113:30 This is especially true for the huge
113:32 stars like the Behemoth star. Their
113:35 scary strength isn't just a show of how
113:37 strong the universe is. It's a key part
113:40 of how galaxies live and die. Massive
113:43 stars aren't very common, but when they
113:45 do happen, they have a huge effect. Even
113:48 though they don't live long, sometimes
113:50 only a few million years, everything
113:52 around them is changed by them. As soon
113:55 as these stars light up, they start
113:57 changing the world around them. Their
113:59 strong radiation ionizes the gas around
114:02 them, and their strong stellar winds cut
114:04 out cosmic holes in molecular clouds,
114:07 spreading gas and starting new rounds of
114:09 star formation. In their final moments,
114:12 giant stars undergo the most influential
114:14 event of their existence, supernova
114:18 explosions. These aren't just fireworks,
114:21 they're chemical engines. The explosion
114:23 seeds the galaxy with heavy elements
114:25 forged in the stars core. Carbon,
114:28 oxygen, silicon, iron, even gold. These
114:31 are the elements that make up planets,
114:33 plants, animals, and you. Without
114:36 massive stars, galaxies would remain
114:38 primitive, devoid of complexity. The
114:42 early universe consisted almost entirely
114:44 of hydrogen and helium. It was only
114:46 through generations of massive stars
114:48 living and dying that the universe
114:50 became chemically rich enough to support
114:52 life. This metal enrichment is
114:54 fundamental to the evolution of
114:56 galaxies. Each giant star acts like a
114:59 stellar alchemist, transforming the
115:01 simple into the complex. But these
115:03 giants also control galactic feedback
115:06 mechanisms. When massive stars explode,
115:09 they push energy into the galactic
115:11 medium, heating and stirring gas clouds.
115:14 This feedback can halt star formation by
115:17 dispersing gas or paradoxically trigger
115:20 new waves of stellar birth in shock
115:22 compressed regions. In this way, massive
115:24 stars are both destroyers and creators,
115:27 regulating the rate at which galaxies
115:29 grow and evolve. The behemoth star with
115:32 its immense size and extreme mass loss
115:34 rate is already affecting its
115:36 surroundings. The dust envelope it has
115:39 shed carries material into the large
115:41 melanic cloud. In time, it will explode,
115:46 sending shock waves through the
115:47 interstellar medium, lighting up the
115:50 cosmic neighborhood and sculpting its
115:52 galactic environment with explosive
115:55 artistry. Also, let's not forget what
115:58 this means for gravity. If the behemoth
116:01 star falls into a black hole, it will
116:03 bend spaceime and may merge with other
116:06 compact objects in the future.
116:08 This could create gravitational waves
116:11 which are like cosmic sounds that travel
116:13 through the universe and give
116:14 astronomers on Earth important
116:20 information. How we discovered the
116:22 behemoth star. The history of
116:28 observation. Before it was known as the
116:31 huge celestial object we admire today,
116:34 the behemoth star was just a strange dot
116:36 in the sky in a far away place. It was a
116:39 weak source of infrared radiation deep
116:42 in the large melanic cloud. Like many
116:45 other big discoveries in astronomy, it
116:47 wasn't amazing pictures that led to the
116:49 finding. Instead, it was data, patience,
116:52 and a camera directed in the right
116:54 direction. The first collection of the
116:57 behemoth star was made by Westerland,
116:59 Olander, and Heddin in the 1970s. This
117:02 is where the W in its name comes from.
117:06 At the time, the star didn't make anyone
117:08 look twice right away. A lot of bright,
117:10 dusty red super giants live in the large
117:12 melanic cloud. But as optical and
117:15 phototric methods got better, scientists
117:18 saw that this wasn't any red super
117:20 giant. It was one that behaved in ways
117:22 that were not consistent with what was
117:24 known about stars. The turning point
117:27 came with the advent of infrared
117:29 astronomy. Visible light can't penetrate
117:31 the thick dust envelope surrounding the
117:33 behemoth star, but infrared waves can.
117:37 Observations using instruments like the
117:39 Very Large Telescope, VT, and the
117:42 Spitzer Space Telescope began to reveal
117:44 startling data. The stars light was
117:47 being heavily reprocessed by dust,
117:49 indicating massive material loss. The
117:52 volume of expelled matter and the stars
117:54 luminosity suggested something
117:56 extraordinary. In 2007, a detailed study
118:00 of its surrounding dust envelope using
118:02 highresolution interferometry confirmed
118:05 what many had suspected. The behemoth
118:08 star was potentially the largest star
118:10 ever discovered. With an estimated
118:12 radius over 1,500 times that of the sun,
118:16 it earned its place in the cosmic hall
118:18 of fame. Nevertheless, it wasn't easy to
118:21 figure out the behemoth stars actual
118:24 size. Astronomers had to use models to
118:27 figure out what the star was really like
118:29 because it was surrounded by a thick
118:30 shell of gas and dust.
118:33 These models took into account how light
118:35 is absorbed, scattered, and reeitted.
118:38 They solved a cosmic investigative
118:40 puzzle that could only be done with data
118:42 from multiple
118:43 wavelengths. The work is still going on.
118:47 As technology gets better, we learn more
118:49 about this star. For example, the James
118:52 Web Space Telescope could help make it
118:54 smaller, more stable, and made of better
118:57 materials in the future. Infrared
119:00 sensors will get better over the next 10
119:02 years, and it will be possible to see
119:04 through thick cosmic
119:06 clouds. This will allow for a more
119:09 complete map of the behemoth stars
119:11 surroundings and how it works on the
119:14 inside. But beyond the data lies a
119:17 deeper truth. The discovery of the
119:20 behemoth star is a testament to human
119:22 curiosity. From faint signal to cosmic
119:25 legend, it's the story of how
119:27 observation, persistence, and
119:29 imagination allow us to uncover giants
119:32 in the sky. In that sense, the behemoth
119:35 star isn't just a discovery. It's a
119:38 monument to what our minds can grasp
119:40 when we dare to look beyond the
119:44 visible. Tools of the hunt, telescopes,
119:48 spectroscopes, and infrared eyes.
119:54 The story of the behemoth star is not
119:56 just a tale of celestial proportions.
119:59 It's also a celebration of the tools
120:00 that made such a discovery possible.
120:03 Unveiling the mysteries of a star
120:05 cloaked in dust radiating more than
120:07 280,000 times the luminosity of the sun
120:10 and hidden away in a neighboring galaxy
120:12 demands more than just a telescope. It
120:15 requires a symphony of observational
120:16 techniques, spectral analysis, and
120:19 cuttingedge instruments that can peer
120:20 through cosmic veils. The earliest
120:23 observations of the behemoth star relied
120:25 on groundbased optical telescopes, which
120:28 first recorded the stars phototric
120:30 irregularities, but these telescopes
120:32 were limited in what they could detect.
120:35 The behemoth star, enshrouded in a thick
120:38 taurus of gas and dust, appeared faint
120:40 and ambiguous when viewed in the visible
120:42 spectrum. The light that did reach Earth
120:45 was already distorted and diminished.
120:48 Because its bands are longer than those
120:50 of visible light, infrared light can
120:52 pass through dust that usually blocks
120:54 out faint or dead stars. The European
120:57 Southern Observatory, ESO, runs the Very
121:00 Large Telescope, VT, in Chile, which
121:03 gives one of the best views of the
121:05 behemoth stars dusty environment.
121:07 Scientists used highresolution imaging
121:10 and analysis to separate the stars
121:12 radiation, study the dust's makeup, and
121:15 figure out that it was losing mass at
121:17 one of the fastest rates ever seen in a
121:19 red super giant. But Earth's atmosphere
121:23 blocks a lot of the infrared spectrum.
121:25 So even infrared telescopes that are on
121:28 the ground can only see so far. In come
121:32 telescopes that are in space, such as
121:34 the Hubble Space Telescope and the
121:36 Spitzer Space Telescope run by
121:38 NASA. Spitzer, in particular, helped
121:41 scientists make models of the behemoth
121:43 stars structure, such as its large dust
121:46 shell and how the temperature inside it
121:48 was distributed. It helped lay the
121:50 groundwork for knowing how bright this
121:52 star is and how huge it is. The
121:54 spectroscope, a machine that splits
121:57 incoming light into its different
121:58 colors, was also very important in the
122:02 search. Scientists could read the
122:04 chemical marks left by the atmosphere of
122:06 the star. With this, the spectrum of the
122:09 behemoth star showed that it had heavy
122:11 elements that were made deep inside it
122:13 and then pushed out into the nearby
122:15 dust. These lines in the spectrum showed
122:18 that there was internal fusion,
122:20 convection instability, and a star
122:23 nearing the end of its life. Astronomers
122:26 also used interpherometry, a method that
122:29 mixes light from several cameras to make
122:31 it look like there is a much larger
122:33 aperture, which makes the clarity much
122:35 better.
122:37 Researchers use tools like the VTI, very
122:40 large telescope interferometer to clear
122:42 up the stars dust shell structure and
122:44 prove its tooidal shape. This helped
122:47 them make better predictions about the
122:48 stars size and behavior. Now with the
122:52 James Web Space Telescope in operation,
122:54 the next phase of observation begins.
122:57 With unprecedented infrared sensitivity,
123:00 JWST can peer even deeper into the
123:03 behemoth stars dusty cocoon. perhaps
123:06 revealing more details about its core,
123:08 its pulsation behavior, and whether a
123:10 hidden companion star lurks nearby. The
123:13 case of the behemoth star is proof that
123:16 cosmic discovery isn't just about
123:18 looking. It's about knowing how to look.
123:20 It's about having the right tools in the
123:22 right hands and the patience to
123:24 interpret faint whispers from the stars.
123:27 The telescopes and instruments we use
123:29 are not just extensions of our eyes.
123:31 They're extensions of our curiosity.
123:37 The biggest star and the future of
123:39 stellar
123:42 physics. The behemoth star isn't just an
123:45 interesting piece of astronomy. It's a
123:47 challenge to current star physics that
123:49 it needs to answer. Scientists have had
123:52 to rethink what they thought they knew
123:54 about how stars form, change, and die
123:56 because of this one star. A red super
123:58 giant that is covered in dust and hidden
124:00 in the large melanic cloud. Why? Because
124:04 a star this big shouldn't exist by any
124:06 normal standards. Still, it does. The
124:09 mass loss rate of the behemoth star is
124:11 so high that it's almost ripping itself
124:13 apart. It goes beyond the hayashi limit
124:16 and is on the edge of gravity
124:18 instability. Its huge dusty Taurus,
124:21 which was probably made by this
124:22 fast-moving debris loss, points to
124:24 internal processes or partner
124:26 interactions that we don't fully
124:28 understand yet. There is a kind of
124:30 stellar gray zone around it where what
124:32 we've modeled and what nature has
124:34 actually made meet. This has huge
124:37 implications for the field. For one,
124:40 massive star evolution models,
124:42 particularly those that simulate the red
124:44 super giant phase, are now under renewed
124:47 scrutiny. The behemoth star defies
124:49 expected limits on radius, luminosity,
124:52 and density profiles. Our current
124:54 equations for stellar structure,
124:56 particularly those used to predict how
124:58 stars move through the Herzrung Russell
125:00 diagram, may need to be revised for
125:02 cases this extreme. If the behemoth star
125:05 is not an anomaly, but rather the first
125:08 of a broader class of extreme red super
125:10 giants, then entire swaths of
125:12 astrophysical theory may be missing
125:14 critical ingredients. Another potential
125:17 implication involves binary star
125:20 systems. If future observations confirm
125:23 that the behemoth star has a companion,
125:25 possibly a blue main sequence star, it
125:28 could lend further support to the idea
125:30 that binary interactions dramatically
125:32 alter stellar
125:34 evolution. This would align with a
125:36 growing body of research suggesting that
125:38 a large percentage of supernova
125:40 progenitors are part of binary systems,
125:43 their fates intertwined by tidal forces,
125:46 mass transfer, and angular momentum
125:48 exchange. There's also the question of
125:51 dust production in
125:52 galaxies. Massive stars like the
125:55 behemoth star contribute heavily to the
125:57 dust budget of the universe, especially
125:59 in galaxies with high star formation
126:01 rates. But the amount of dust being
126:03 ejected from the behemoth star is
126:05 unusually high, more than what standard
126:08 models predicted for red super giants.
126:11 This means such stars may play a more
126:13 dominant role in seeding galaxies with
126:15 dust and heavy elements than we've
126:17 previously appreciated.
126:19 For early galaxies especially, this
126:22 could change how we understand the
126:23 enrichment of the interstellar medium.
126:26 Studying stars like the behemoth star
126:29 helps us prepare for the future, not
126:31 just of this star, but of our sun and
126:33 others like it. While the sun will never
126:36 become a red super giant, many more
126:39 massive stars in our cosmic neighborhood
126:41 are headed in that direction. Observing
126:43 the behemoth star is like watching the
126:45 endgame of a massive stars life in real
126:48 time, giving us a window into the
126:51 mechanics that will eventually lead to
126:53 supernovi, neutron stars, or black
126:56 holes. What we think of as a star might
126:59 change after seeing the behemoth star.
127:02 It might be hard to tell the difference
127:04 between a star and a cloud or between
127:06 fusion and collapse when it is very
127:08 swollen and disorganized.
127:11 This makes us sharpen our language and
127:13 rethink our categories. Kind of like how
127:15 Pluto's position as a planet changed as
127:17 new information came in. New telescopes
127:20 like the Extremely Large Telescope ELT
127:24 and the James Web Space Telescope are
127:26 pushing the limits of how sharp and
127:28 sensitive they can be. Soon, stars like
127:31 the Behemoth Star will no longer be
127:33 hidden secrets. They will be case
127:35 studies that show how a new area of star
127:38 astronomy works.
127:41 Why giant stars remind us how small we
127:43 truly
127:46 are. These are the shocking
127:49 numbers. 1540 times the size of the sun.
127:52 A cloud of dust that is over a lightyear
127:55 long. Something that is more than
127:57 280,000 times brighter than our star.
128:00 The behemoth star doesn't just break
128:02 records. It also serves as a warning.
128:06 something to remind us of how big,
128:07 strange, and humbling the universe can
128:09 be. The sun is often thought of as very
128:12 big, and it is to us. Our solar system
128:15 is held together by its gravity, and
128:17 it's the star that powers life on Earth.
128:20 Still, the behemoth star makes it seem
128:23 very small. If you stood on a madeup
128:26 world that circled this monster, you
128:28 wouldn't see a sun. You'd see a sky full
128:30 of sun, a fiery red screen that goes
128:33 from horizon to horizon and floods your
128:36 world with constant scorching sunlight.
128:38 You wouldn't just watch the sky burn,
128:40 you'd watch the sunset. And yet, in the
128:44 face of this cosmic titan, our planet
128:46 keeps spinning. Our lives go on,
128:49 measured in hours and heartbeats,
128:51 utterly unaware of the celestial
128:53 extremes unfolding far beyond our skies.
128:56 The behemoth star is 168,000 lighty
128:59 years away. And yet its light, faint
129:02 though it is, has crossed the void to
129:04 tell us a story about power, fragility,
129:06 and the fleeting nature of all things,
129:08 even
129:09 stars. Because here's the truth. Even
129:12 the biggest stars die. The behemoth star
129:16 will eventually fall apart. No matter
129:18 how big or angry it is, it will no
129:21 longer be visible in the night sky, and
129:23 it will go away with a bang.
129:25 It could go supernova, send gammaray
129:28 bursts hurtling through space, or fall
129:30 apart into a black hole that eats up all
129:33 light and time. And then there will only
129:36 be dust or stardust left over. This is
129:39 where new worlds, stars, and maybe even
129:42 life will begin. That's what amazes
129:45 people about stars like the behemoth
129:47 star. They serve as symbols of both size
129:50 and history. We are small, but our very
129:53 atoms were formed in stars like this
129:54 one. The carbon in your breath, the iron
129:58 in your blood, and the calcium in your
130:00 bones were all made in a fiery place in
130:02 space billions of years before you took
130:05 your first step. Even after we're gone,
130:08 stars like the behemoth star will keep
130:10 the cycle going by dying, falling, and
130:13 spreading the building blocks for new
130:15 life.
130:16 We are, as Carl Sean said, a way for the
130:19 universe to know itself. And in learning
130:22 about the behemoth star, we don't just
130:24 learn about distant stars. We learn
130:27 about ourselves, our past, our future,
130:30 our place in a story written across the
130:32 sky. The behemoth star is a monument to
130:35 the universe's wildest
130:37 possibilities. It is a firebreathing
130:39 monster covered in dust that is about to
130:41 fall apart, but shines with a light that
130:43 is brighter than many solar systems.
130:46 We don't just learn about stars when we
130:48 study it. We also learn about the limits
130:51 of life, where elements come from, and
130:53 the strange rules that guide the biggest
130:56 stars in the universe. We're not just
130:58 looking out as we learn more about these
131:00 huge stars. We're also looking back into
131:03 the fire of
131:04 creation. Don't forget to like, share,
131:07 and follow if this journey amazed or
131:09 interested you. There's more magic out
131:12 there in the stars.
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