By: Natalie Nepa
By: Natalie Nepa

• The Pistol star is located near the center of the
Milky way galaxy.
• It was discovered by the
Hubble Space telescope in the early 1900s.
• It is 10 million times more brighter than the Sun.
• The Pistol Star is 4 million years old.

• The Pistol Star is about
340 times the diameter of the Sun.
• Total, it is about 100 times more massive that the sun.
• The Pistol Star is big enough to fill the diameter of the Earth’s orbit.

• The Pistol Star is about
25,000 light years away from the Sun.
• Even though its so far away the Pistol Star would still be visible to the naked eye if not for all the dust blocking it.

• The Pistol Star is a bright white.
(most of the bright white cannot be seen because of the dust)

• The temperature of the Pistol Star is between
14-21,000 Kelvin.
• The temperature of the Sun is about 5,800
Kelvin.
• The Pistol Star is much hotter that the Sun.

Pistol Star
Sun

• The Pistol Star is in one of the Zodiac constellations Sagittarius.
• It is a picture the centaur (half man half horse) named Chiron.
• Chiron was accidentally shot by Hercules.
The arrow had poison on it. Chiron was suffering. He was an immortal (unable to die) so he could no be relieved with death.
Chiron offered himself as a replacement for Prometheus. Prometheus was punished for giving fire to man. His punishment was being chained to a rock.
Each day an eagle would come and eat his liver and each night it would grow back.
Jupiter(a god) had agreed to release
Prometheus if a substitute could be found.
Chiron gave up his immortality and went as a substitute for Prometheus. In recognition of Chiron’s “godness”, Jupiter placed him in the stars.

The bottom track is the cycle that the Pistol Star is going through.
The Pistol Star is currently in the Supergiant phase. The star was born from a Stellar Nebula and it will die into a Neutron Star or a Black Hole.

• Bell, Cathy. "Sagittarius." Comfychair.org. Web. 23 Nov. 2009.
<http://comfychair.org/~cmbell/myth/sagittarius.html>.
• "Pistol Star." Web. 23 Nov. 2009.
<http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/P/Pistol_Star.html>.
• The StarChild Team. "StarChild Question of the Month for May 2000."
Starchild.com. Web. 23 Nov. 2009.
<http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/questions/question21.html>.
• Figer, Don F. "Hubble Identifies What May Be the Most Luminous Star Known."
Hubblesite.org. NASA, 8 Oct. 1997. Web. 23 Nov. 2009.
<http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/1997/33>.
• Wikipedia. "Pistol Star." En.wilipedia.org. Web. 23 Nov. 2009.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pistol_Star>.
• "Pistol Star." Jumk.de. Web. 23 Nov. 2009. <http://jumk.de/astronomie/bigstars/pistol-star.shtml>.