Miller 42

Melnik 42 ( Melnick 42 , Mk 42 ) is a massive blue supergiant in the Tarantula nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud in the constellation Golden Fish . Despite the fact that the star is only 21 times the radius of the sun , due to the high temperature (43,700 K ), the star is one of the most powerful stars known : the luminosity is 3,600,000 luminosities of the sun . Miller 42 is located less than 2 pc from the center of R136 , but outside the core of the cluster.

Initially, Mk 42 was classified as a star of the spectral class WN, then as O3 If, then as O3 If * / WN6. Finally, the introduction of the spectral class O2 and the improvement of the spectral classification led to the assignment of Mk 42 to the class O2 If *. Despite the fact that Mk 42 belongs to the luminosity class of supergiants, the star itself is at the stage of the main sequence , thermonuclear hydrogen burning occurs in the star’s core . It is believed that the age of the star is less than a million years ^[7] .