Massive stars are 'vomiting' everywhere - and it's a sign something huge is happening

Huge stars that collapse to create black holes may vomit out a lot more material during their lifespan than initially thought, according to a new study.

The stars in question have masses more than 100 times that of our sun and a team of scientists has estimated these stars must have stellar winds much more powerful than previous estimates, reports Space.com.

These winds should be powerful enough to blow outer layers of these huge stars out into space.

Stellar binaries are systems of two stars that are gravitationally bound to each other and orbit a common centre of mass; these can also lead to mergers that form colossal stars, according to the research team's model.

Speaking to Space.com, Kendall Shepherd, a researcher at the Institute for Advanced Study in Italy, said: "Very massive stars are like the 'rock stars' of the universe - they are powerful and they live fast and die young. For these very massive stars, their stellar wind is more like a hurricane than a light breeze."

  Studies on stars are important because of the impact they can have on their environments / iStock

Studies into these stars are crucial as they have such a massive impact on their environments despite their relatively short lives.

"The strong winds of very massive stars and their eventual supernova explosions eject newly formed elements into the environment," Shepherd added.

"Many of these elements form the basis of new stars, while others, like carbon and oxygen, are the building blocks of life. They are also the progenitors of black holes, including the black hole binaries that merge and produce gravitational waves that we detect on Earth."

Also, strong stellar winds and the quick mass loss they cause have a huge impact on the size of the black holes that are created when huge stars collapse under their own gravity.

Shepherd said their "study can shed a lot of light on predicting black hole masses". The research is available as a preprint on the research repository arXiv.

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