Wolf Rayet Star

WOLF RAYET STAR:-

Wolf–Rayet stars, often abbreviated as WR stars, are a rare heterogeneous set of stars with unusual spectra showing prominent broad emission lines of ionized helium and highly ionized nitrogen or carbon. The spectra indicate very high surface enhancement of heavy elements, depletion of hydrogen, and strong stellar winds. Their surface temperatures range from 30,000 K to around 200,000 K, hotter than almost all other stars. They were previously called W-type stars referring to their spectral classification. Wolf-Rayet stars make our sun look tiny. They can be hundreds of times more massive, millions of times brighter, and tens of thousands of degrees hotter. Named after French astronomers Charles Wolf and George Rayet, who discovered them at the Paris Observatory in 1867, Wolf-Rayet stars are exceedingly rare. We know of only 500 in the Milky Way, plus a few hundred in the surrounding galaxies.

Our own sun sounds pretty impressive: 1.3 million times the volume of Earth, 330,000 times as massive, 10,000 degrees Celsius at its surface, and 400 million billion billion watts of power. But, for a star, the sun is pretty puny. The real stellar heavyweights are the Wolf-Rayet stars: the most massive and brightest stars known.

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