'Most massive' stars discovered (VIDEO)

Using the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) Very Large Telescope, Paul Crowther, Professor of Astrophysics from the Department of Physics and Astronomy found stars weighing up to 300 times the mass of the Sun, a figure which doubles the previously accepted limit of solar mass.

A team of international astronomers led by Professor Crowther used the ESO and data from the NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope to study the two clusters of stars.

NGC 3603 is located 22,000 light-years away from the Sun, and is a cosmic factory within which stars form quickly from the nebula's ring of gas and dust. RMC 136a (more commonly known as R136a), another cluster of young, hot stars, is found within the Tarantula nebula, itself within the Large Magellanic Cloud, a neighboring galaxy to the Milky Way.