one of the top candidates for the title of Milky Way stellar heavyweight champion
This photo, supplied by NASA and the European Space Agency on Monday, Dec. 11, 2006, shows Pismis 24-1, a bright young star that lies in the core of the small open star cluster Pismis 24, the bright stars in this Hubble Space Telescope image. It was one of the top candidates for the title of Milky Way stellar heavyweight champion until very recently, Pismis 24-1, about 8,000 light-years away from Earth, was thought to have an incredibly large mass of 200 to 300 solar masses. but new NASA/ESA Hubble measurements of the star, have discovered that Pismis 24-1 is actually two separate stars, and, in doing so, have halved its mass to around 100 solar masses.The star cluster Pismis 24 lies in the core of the large emission nebula NGC 6357 that extends on the arm of the Sagittarius constellation. The results of the lastest observations was reported to the Massive Stars Workshop in Argentina this month, December 2006.(AP Photo/NASA/ESA)