The hottest star ever found: Super-bright white dwarf on the edge of the Milky Way is 42 TIMES hotter than our sun
- Star smashes the previous temperature record by 50,000°C (90,032°F)
- The white dwarf called RX J0439.8-6809 is measured 250,000°C (450,000°F)
- Astronomers believe it was even hotter just 1,000 years ago
A white dwarf on the edge of our galaxy has been spotted that reaches record-breaking temperatures of 250,000°C (450,000°F).
This makes the star, known as RX J0439.8-6809, 42 times hotter than our own sun and 50,000°C (90,032°F) hotter than any star previously found.
Despite these searing temperatures, astronomers believe the star is cooling down and was even hotter only 1,000 years ago.
A white dwarf (illustration pictured) on the edge of our galaxy has been spotted that reaches record-breaking temperatures of 250,000°C (450,000°F). This makes the star, known as RX J0439.8-6809, 42 times hotter than our own sun and 50,000°C (90,032°C) hotter than any star previously found
Researchers at the Universities of Tübingen and Potsdam in Germany used the Hubble Space Telescope to measure the ultraviolet spectrum of the star and take its temperature.
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Amazingly, the star would have been as hot as 400,000°C (720,032°F) just 1,000 years ago - the blink of an eye in astronomical terms.
By comparison, our sun is cool at just under 6,000°C (10,832°F), and has been relatively stable at that temperature for 4.6 billion years.
When it begins to burn out, in about another 5 billion years, it will reach 180,000°C (32,4032°F) – still hot enough to vaporise the inner planets including Earth.
Stars heat up as they reach the end of their lives, having used up most of the nuclear fuel at their cores.
It was previously thought the hottest stars were dying blue hypergiants, with masses more than 100 times our sun.
To find such high temperatures in a relatively small white dwarf might change how astronomers rank such stars.
When RX J0439.8-6809 was first discovered more than 20 years ago, it was so bright it was thought to be part of the Large Magellanic Cloud – a small galaxy orbiting the Milky Way.
The new Hubble data, however, proves that the star is actually on the outskirts of the Milky Way, moving away from us at a speed of 490,000mph - or 220 kilometres per second .
The Hubble data (shown in this graphic) shows the super-hot white dwarf is on the outskirts of the Milky Way, moving away at a speed of 490,000mph (220km/s). Between us and the speeding star, the spectral analysis revealed the presence of dust and gas with a chemical composition that means it can't be part of our galaxy
By comparison, our sun is cool at just under 6,000°C (10,832°F), and has been relatively stable at that temperature for 4.6 billion years. RX J0439.8-6809 is five times the size of our sun, though. Stars heat up as they reach the end of their lives, having used up most of the nuclear fuel at their cores
Between Earth and the speeding super-hot star, the spectral analysis revealed the presence of a cloud of dust and gas with a chemical composition that means it could have originated from outside our galaxy.
Galaxies could be routinely collecting fresh intergalactic material from other parts of the universe, which would later conflate into new stars.
The findings have been published in the latest edition of Astronomy & Astrophysics.
When RX J0439.8-6809 was first discovered more than 20 years ago, it was so bright it was thought to be part of the Large Magellanic Cloud (pictured) – a small galaxy orbiting the Milky Way
The previous record holder was H1504+65 (artist's impressions shown). It is an extremely hot white dwarf with a temperature of around 200,000°C (360,032°F) with a carbon-oxygen atmosphere
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