• Question: How hot is the hottest star in space and where is it located?

    Asked by yay123 on 21 Jan 2016. This question was also asked by Sophxo, teddygibson2696, emh4.
    • Photo: Jon Farrow

      Jon Farrow answered on 21 Jan 2016:

      Through their lifetimes, stars change a lot in size, brightness, and temperature. The answer to your question kind of depends on what you count as a “star”… Does an exploding star count? What about a neutron star? “Hot” can also be a problematic word when you’re talking about stars. Does that mean surface temperature or core temperature? Bigger stars tend to be brighter and put out more energy in total, but on a per-kg basis, some special small stars are brighter.

      You might find this webpage interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_star_extremes

      According to it, the hottest “normal” star is called Melnick 34 and it’s located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a nearby galaxy.

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