A new star has been discovered, the biggest one ever found. It is 265 times the mass of the sun and ten-million times brighter. The scientists have decided that it should be called R136a1.
Update (from the Guardian “comments”): It is nowhere near the biggest star ever found, yet the front page story says so. Could someone please correct this? The biggest star known is VY Canis Majoris, which is at least 1,800 solar radii. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vy_canis_majoris
I like Goofy as a name for this one, although strictly speaking “the planet Goofy” would sound the best. What would the goats think of this, I wonder?
A Bad Guide 
Liberace was an ageing star of non-negligible diameter, and he glittered more than the entire Milky Way.
You need to make up your mind whether this is About Goats or Not.
I mean, Goofy may have Goats. I presume nothing.
“It is nowhere near the biggest star ever found”: then call it Ringo.
Thanks, Language. I always forget that bit. I’ll be sorry one day when I’m trying to sort through my posts.
Liberace had a bit of a problem with his name too. I’m sure he had to spell it for everyone before he became famous. You didn’t see him going around as R136a1.
Seems to depend what one means by “biggest”.
According to that WP link, Goofy is at most a mere 25 times as heavy as the Sun. So the new one is a whole order of magnitude (not magnitude-magnitude, but scale-magnitude) massier.
I actually didn’t think stars could grow that massy this late in the universe, so I can understand the headlines.
Isn’t this partly about dogs rather than goats, though? It’s Canis, not Capriwhateveris.
The better krants and ‘bladets have been billing R136a1 as the “zwaarste” (heaviest) known, which has the advantage of being a true claim and not a false one.
R136a1 isn’t a name for the heaviest sun, it’s the name on a label in the left-luggage office at Exeter railway station.
Sili, billions of years ago dogs and goats were the same creature, a kind of dinosaur, so this is a reference to the age of the sun Goofy and its distance from us.
How is your sister’s baby calf? Has it turned into a moo cow or into a snorting bull that paws the ground?
“Has it turned into a moo cow or into a snorting bull that paws the ground?” There are other options, Crown.
Life is hard:
There’s no reason you have to accept the IAU’s choices, but astronomers mostly do.
There are other options, Crown.
Wiener Schnitzel ??
We won’t think about the other options.
Thanks, des (Des), I’d not realised that there’s money to be made. I currently own Mars, but I might be willing to sell if the price was right.
Shall we have a quibble about mass vs weight now, or shall we skip it?
What would be the quibble ? There are no scales big enough to weigh a star anyway. And even if there were, where would you set them down ? Sheesh !
We can quibble. Why can’t we say “a heavy mass”, only “a large mass”? It’s as if the weight of the mass were being ignored — the elephant in the room, you might say.
A heavy mass is just dual to a massive weight, anyway.
Also if the elephant in the room has the mass of a star then the room is going to be in the elephant before you can say “retreat to a safe distance”.
That’s right. A large mass can be very small.
A large mass can be very small.
For example when attendance is low. I propose a new scale for ordering stars: Matins, Lauds, Prime and so on.
Okay. But only after all the cartoon characters are used.
She’s doing well, I’m told. Not surprisingly she’d like to still walk into the house given half a chance.
I haven’t had a chance to photograph her, myself, but I’ll be sure to let you know, as soon as I do.
I deliberately used mass- in my post in order not to get into that particular argument. If the estimable Phil Plait can use “masses” in place of “weighs”, I can use “massy”.
Cue “Y momma’s so massy …” jokes.
One of my son’s science teachers used a verb “mass” instead of “weigh”. I have never gotten over it.
In Martian Creole “mass” is marijuana (or gandia). It is said to come from the Hindi word mastana, ‘intoxicated, like a man intoxicated’.
mastana also means “in heat” and “happy-go-lucky”, “easygoing”. The latter I can see, but does marijuans bring about the former too?
Grass doesn’t bring on heat, but it is a good heat conductor. As I recall from the sixties …