An Airbus A321 crashed as it was about to land in the capital Islamabad, killing all 152 people on board.

The domestic flight from the southern city of Karachi was operated by the private Pakistani airline Airblue, which has a good safety record.

The air was heavy with a deathly smell of petrol, smoke and charred flesh”

There is no word on the cause of the crash. It happened in heavy monsoon rain and poor visibility.

The plane – with 146 passengers and six crew on board – was flying at an extremely low level before crashing into the Margalla hills north of the capital, eyewitnesses said.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani declared Thursday a day of national mourning and ordered flags to fly at half-mast across the country.

Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira said 115 bodies had been recovered, but bad weather and difficult terrain had hampered recovery efforts.

Airline response

Passengers’ remains were badly damaged in the crash and DNA tests would be used to identify the victims, he told reporters.

Aamir Ali Ahmed, a senior city government official, told Reuters news agency: “It’s a very difficult operation because of the rain. Most of the bodies are charred.”

Rescue worker Dawar Adnan told Associated Press from the crash site: “I’m seeing only body parts. This is a very horrible scene.”

So far, only 46 bodies have been identified.

Two Americans were among the victims, a US embassy spokesman said, but gave no further details.

Officials say investigators are still looking for the flight data recorder, denying earlier reports that the “black box” had been found.

The BBC’s Aleem Maqbool in Islamabad says that many flights on the popular route from Karachi to Islamabad have been cancelled in recent days because of the bad weather.

There are already serious questions being asked about why this plane was allowed to fly, and about whether this tragedy could have been averted, our correspondent adds.

There were also complaints about the response of Airblue.

“We didn’t get information,” says Zulfiqar Qadri, who lost a family member. “They just put a list of dead passengers in our hands.”

Airblue spokesman Raheel Ahmed told reporters that the crash had been “an extremely tragic incident” and the plane had no history of technical problems.

It was leased by Airblue in January 2006 and had accumulated about 34,000 flight hours.

The Appellate Division of Supreme Court in a landmark verdict strongly denounced martial law and suspension of the country’s constitution, and recommended meting out suitable punishment to the perpetrators.

Upholding the High Court Division’s historic ruling of 2005 that had declared the fifth amendment to the constitution illegal, the apex court also said it is up to the parliament to enact laws to prevent martial law.

“We are putting on record our total disapproval of martial law and suspension of the constitution or any part thereof in any form,” said the Appellate Division verdict.

“The perpetrators of such illegalities should also be suitably punished and condemned so that in future no adventurist, no usurper, would dare to defy the people, their constitution, their government, established by them with their consent,” the apex court concluded.

It also said military rule was wrongly justified in the past, and it should not be justified in future on any ground.

“Let us bid farewell to all kinds of extra constitutional adventure forever,” it observed.

Extra constitutional usurpation of state power happened twice in Bangladesh.

Following the brutal assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on August 15, 1975, Khondaker Moshtaque Ahmed assumed the office of president, and placed the whole country under martial law for the first time in independent Bangladesh.

The regime began with overthrowing the government led by Bangabandhu, and on November 6, 1975 it dissolved the first parliament formed through the 1973 election.

During the first martial law regime, the constitution was made subordinate to martial law proclamations, regulations, and orders for around four years.

The first martial law was lifted on April 7, 1979 after a newly formed parliament dominated by the then nascent BNP passed the Fifth Amendment Act the day before, ratifying all preceding martial law proclamations and regulations, and all actions under that regime.

Lt General HM Ershad imposed the second stint of martial law overthrowing the then elected president Justice Abdus Sattar, and issuing the proclamation of March 24, 1982. Ershad is currently the chief of Jatiya Party, a major component of ruling Awami League-led grand alliance.

Moshtaque’s proclamation of August 20, 1975 allowed the constitution to remain in force, albeit subject to the martial law proclamation, regulations, orders, etc.

But Ershad’s proclamation suspended the constitution, and he reserved the power to revive the constitution partially in phases, which he did time to time after 1985, until its full revival on November 10, 1986 when the martial law was withdrawn.

Like his predecessors, Ershad made the third parliament pass the Seventh Amendment Act.

On November 11, 1986, the third elected parliament brought the seventh amendment to the constitution, ratifying Ershad’s martial law proclamation and all orders, regulations, and actions made under that proclamation.

During the martial law regimes, the then Supreme Court judges on various grounds expressed inability to take strong position against the regimes.

Analysing the second martial law regime, former chief justice Mustafa Kamal in his book titled “Bangladesh Constitution: Trends and Issues”, said, “It can be seen that this entire period of Second Martial Law (1982-86) was a period of virtual inaction on constitutional issues, on the part of the Supreme Court.”

About the first martial law regime which was imposed amid a state of emergency that had been in force since December 1974, the former chief justice said during the long period of 5 years till November 1979, the Supreme Court was denied jurisdiction to enforce fundamental rights.

“The law of fundamental rights, therefore, had very little scope to flourish in Bangladesh,” he added. Against such a backdrop, the Appellate Division took the strong position against martial law.

“We are of the view that in the spirit of the Preamble and also Article 7 of the constitution military rule, direct or indirect, is to be shunned once [and] for all,” the verdict said.

“Let it be made clear that military rule was wrongly justified in the past and it ought not to be justified in future on any ground, principle, doctrine or theory whatsoever as the same is against the dignity, honour and glory of the nation that it achieved after great sacrifice,” it added.

It stated that military rule is also against the dignity and honour of the people of Bangladesh, who are committed to uphold the sovereignty and integrity of the nation by all means.

The verdict went on to say, “It is also against the honour of each and every soldier of the armed forces who are oath bound to bear true faith and allegiance to Bangladesh and uphold the constitution which embodies the will of the people, honestly and faithfully to serve Bangladesh in their respective services and also see that the constitution is upheld, it is not kept in suspension, abrogated, it is not subverted, it is not mutilated, and to say the least it is not held in abeyance and it is not amended by any authority not competent to do so under the constitution.”

Earlier, the HC had also strongly denounced martial law, and Moshtaque, Justice Sayem, and Gen Ziaur Rahman for imposing such regimes.

“We found to our utter astonishment that how a minister in the cabinet [Moshtaque], a chief justice of the Supreme Court [Sayem], the chief of staff of the army [Ziaur Rahman], treated the constitution, the supreme law of this country with so much disgrace that independent Bangladesh was virtually made subservient to a few,” the HC verdict said.

“Khondaker Moshtaque Ahmed seized the office of president and virtually occupied Bangladesh. Justice Sayem dissolved the National Assembly and made the country fully autocratic, without any parliament, even worse than what it was before August, 1947, under the British government. Major General Ziaur Rahman did not even stop there,” the HC verdict added.

During the first martial law, Moshtaque assumed the office of president, but did not assume the powers of the chief martial law administrator (CMLA).

Moshtaque handed over the office of president to Justice MA Sayem on November 6, 1975. Two days later Sayem also assumed the powers of CMLA.

On November 29, 1976, Sayem relinquished the office of CMLA, and handed it over to Maj Gen Ziaur Rahman.

On April 21, 1977, Sayem resigned from the office of president as well, appointing Ziaur Rahman as the president.

The full text of the Appellate Division judgement on the 5th amendment of the Constitution was released Tuesday evening.

The Supreme Court authorities released the copy of the judgement after the five judges of the apex court signed the verdict.

The 5th amendment had endorsed the takeover of the state powers by Khandaker Mushtaque Ahmed, Abu Sadaat Mohammad Sayem and Maj Gen Ziaur Rahman and their actions.

The High Court in a verdict on August 29, 2005 declared the 5th amendment illegal and unconstitutional.

The Appellate Division of the SC on February 2 this year upheld the HC verdict with some observations and modifications.

The verdict has been released on the SC website: www.supremecourt.gov.bd.

Former secretary general of the BNP Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan died of lung cancer at 12:01am on Wednesday at Square Hospital in the capital. He was 67.

He was brought back from Singapore National University Hospital by an air ambulance following treatment from June 18 to July 7 and was admitted to the intensive care unit of the hospital.

Mannan, also the former LGRD and Cooperatives minister, was on a life-support in the city hospital. He was also on life support at the Singapore hospital.

Bhuiyan served as BNP secretary general for 11 years. The party chairperson expelled him before she was arrested during the tenure of the last caretaker government in September 2007.

The first namaj-e-janaza of Bhuiyan will be held at about 12noon on Parliament premises, second janaza after Zohr prayers at Baitul Mokarram Mosque. He will be buried at his home village in Narshingdi following the third janaza in the afternoon.

Meanwhile, BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia and Secretary General Khandaker Delwar Hossain expressed their shock at the departure of Bhuiyan.

According to Li Tongyu, general manager of the marketing department at the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT), engineers are currently studying a rocket engine with the thrust of 600 tonnes, burning highly potent liquid oxygen and liquid oxygen propellant.

If China succeeds in the development of such power, it would increase the nation’s capabilities in space by orders of magnitude.

For comparison, China is currently well in the development of its most powerful rocket to date – Long March-5 – that would sport engines with the thrust of 120 tonnes.

“Rockets (with 600-tonne thrust engines) would only be justified for things like sending humans to the Moon, if such projects are approved,” Li Tongyu told BBC News.

In March, the official China Daily newspaper disclosed that CALT was studying a super-heavy launch vehicle, which could be used to mount lunar expeditions.

At the time, the newspaper quoted CALT Vice President Liang Xiaohong as saying that the total lift-off thrust of the future heavy launcher would be 3,000 tonnes.

‘Grander scale’

To develop such thrust, the first stage of the proposed rocket would need five 600-tonne engines, possibly distributed between one central stage and four strap-on boosters.

The rocket’s architecture would thus be similar to the one adopted for the Long March-5 rocket, but at a considerably grander scale.

Although the expected payload of the future heavy lifter had not been disclosed, available details allow placing it close to the same category with that of the Saturn-5 rocket, which carried US astronauts to the Moon.

In the meantime, the development of the Long March-5 rocket was proceeding well toward its first test launch, currently expected in 2014, Li Tongyu said.

The vehicle’s first stage engine had already accumulated more than 10,000 seconds of firing during tests – an important milestone on the way to its certification for real missions.

A full-scale prototype of the Long March 5 rocket would be ready for testing in 2012 and a year later, test firing of fully assembled rocket stages would be conducted.

When operational, Long March-5 is expected to deliver up to 25 tonnes of payload, including space station modules to the low Earth orbit, and up to 14 tonnes to the so-called geostationary transfer orbit, where most communications satellites are released after launch.

At the UK’s Farnborough airshow, CALT demonstrated computer-generation videos, showcasing impressive new assembly and launch infrastructure of the Long March-5 rocket.

Newly built facilities will feature a sprawling campus not far from Chinese capital Beijing, where the rocket would be assembled.

The rocket stages would then be shipped to the launch site in the very south of China, where it could take advantage of the Earth rotation to maximise its cargo capabilities.

Along with Earth-orbiting satellites, the Long March-5 is expected to carry Chinese spacecraft into deep space, including unmanned missions to return soil samples from the Moon.

In its first hearing on Monday, the International Crimes Tribunal issued arrest warrants against four Jamaat-e-Islami top leaders.

The warrants were issued against Jamaat-e-Islami chief Matiur Rahman Nizami, secretary general Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed, assistant secretary generals Mohammed Kamaruzzaman and Abdul Quader Molla for alleged crimes against humanity during 1971.

The Tribunal’s 20-minute hearing considered an application filed on Sunday by the prosecution panel’s chief Golam Arif Tipu with the tribunal’s registrar Mohammed Shahinur Islam.

Special security measures were taken for the hearing which started at around 10.30am at the tribunal established in the old High Court building.

Tribunal members Mohammad Nizamul Huq, ATM Fazle Kabir and AKM Zahir Ahmed were all present in court.

Tipu told the hearing: “The four including Nizami are already arrested in other cases, in which they might get bail.”

“Evidence might be destroyed if they stay free which might hinder investigations. The arrest warrants needs to be issued to assist investigations,” he added.

Mentioning rule 9 (1) of the Tribunal’s rules of procedure Tipu said: “The prosecution has specific allegations against them. The arrest warrants could be issued upon them in line with the tribunal act.”

The court then asked the chief prosecutor for specifics of the allegations.

“They were active in committing crimes including killings, genocide, looting, rape, arson as the collaborators of the occupation army at different places of Bangladesh during the Liberation War in 1971,” Tipu replied.

“In-depth investigations are underway against them, so they should be shown arrested for the sake of investigation,” he added.

The court then asked for information on the location of the crimes committed by the accused.

Tipu said, “They actively participated in these crimes throughout the country.”

When asked for explanation why they should face further warrants since they are already in jail, the prosecution chief replied: “They were not arrested in relation to these crimes. Arrest warrants should be issued so that they cannot secure bail in other cases.”

The tribunal then allowed the prayer ruling that, “In the interest of effective investigation, warrant of arrests should be issued against these four persons.”

The tribunal set August 2 for submission of a report on whether the warrant had become effective.

The four Jamaat-e-Islami top leader have recently been apprehended by the police in relation to cases at Keraniganj and Mirpur police station involving the killing of freedom fighters.

Prosecution panel members Syed Rezaur Rahman, Abdur Rahman Hawlader and Mokhlesur Rahman were present during the hearing, along with attorney general Mahbubey Alam, additional attorneys general MK Rahman, Murad Reza and Mamtaz Uddin Fakir.

The attorney general is his reaction to the order told reporters: “The petition was filed so that they cannot escape.”

He also urged all people to assist the tribunal by providing information regarding the crimes against humanity during the war.

The government on March 25 formed the tribunal, prosecution panel and the investigation agency to try the long-awaited trials of the crimes committed during the 1971 War of Independence.

More than 90,000 leaked US military records have been published on the website Wikileaks, reportedly revealing hidden details of the Afghanistan war.

Three major news publications which have been shown the documents say they include unreported killings of Afghan civilians.

The huge cache of classified papers is described as one of the biggest leaks in US military history.

The White House has condemned the leaks as “irresponsible”.

Reports by the UK daily The Guardian, the New York Times and the German weekly Der Spiegel say the leaked papers reveal Nato concerns that neighbouring Pakistan and Iran are helping Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan.

The Pakistani ambassador in Washington said the “unprocessed” reports did “not reflect the current onground realities”.

“The United States, Afghanistan and Pakistan are strategic partners and are jointly endeavouring to defeat al-Qaeda and its Taliban allies militarily and politically,” said Husain Haqqani.

The reports also suggest:

• The Taliban has had access to portable heat-seeking missiles to shoot at aircraft.
• A secret US unit of army and navy special forces has been engaged on missions to “capture or kill” top insurgents.
• Many civilian casualties have gone unreported, both as a result of Taliban roadside bombs and Nato missions that went wrong.

The BBC’s diplomatic correspondent Bridget Kendall says that although the documents reveal no dramatic new insights, they show the difficulties of the war and the civilan death toll.

The reports offer an unvarnished and grim picture of the Afghan war, she adds.

In a statement, US National Security Adviser Gen James Jones said such classified information “could put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk, and threaten our national security”.

He said the documents covered the period from 2004 to 2009, before President Obama “announced a new strategy with a substantial increase in resources for Afghanistan”.

‘Civilian deaths’

Another US official said that Wikileaks – which specialises in making public untraceable material from “whistleblowers” – was not an objective news outlet and described it as an organisation that opposes US policy in Afghanistan.

But the head of the Foreign Relations Committee in the US Senate said that “however illegally these documents came to light, they raise serious questions about the reality of America’s policy toward Pakistan and Afghanistan”.

“Those policies are at a critical stage and these documents may very well underscore the stakes and make the calibrations needed to get the policy right more urgent,” said Democrat Senator John Kerry.

Wikileaks is releasing the set of documents under the title Afghan War Diary. It says is has delayed the release of about 15,000 reports from the archive as part of a “harm minimisation process demanded by our source”.

The Guardian and the New York Times say they had no contact with the original source of the leak, but spent weeks crosschecking the information.

The reports come as Nato says it is investigating reports that as many as 45 civilians died in an air strike in Helmand province on Friday.

Although an initial Nato investigation found no evidence, a BBC journalist visiting Regey village spoke to several people who said they had witnessed the incident.

They said the attack had come in daylight as dozens sheltered from fighting in nearby Joshani.

A Nato spokesman said international forces went to great measures to avoid civilian casualties.

“The safety of the Afghan people is very important to the International Security Assistance Forces,” Lt Col Chris Hughes added.

The prosecution on Sunday filed a petition with the International Crimes Tribunal, seeking its directive to show four detained top Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami leaders arrested in connection with crimes committed against humanity.

The four leaders are Jamaat chief Motiur Rahman Nizami, Secretary General Ali Ahsan Muhammad Mojahid and senior assistant secretaries general Muhammad Qamaruzzaman and Abdul Quader Mollah.

“We have submitted a petition to the tribunal through its registrar, seeking necessary order so that the four Jamaat big shots can be kept confined and the investigation agency can smoothly conduct investigation into the allegations against them of committing genocide, killing, rape, torture, looting, arson during the Liberation War in 1971,” Prosecutor Golam Arif Tipu told reporters at a briefing.

He however said the tribunal will pass order after holding hearing on the petition.

Prosecution sources said they will submit petition to the tribunal soon for necessary order to show some other Jamaat leaders arrested or detained on the same charges.

Earlier, a member of the investigation agency said they have submitted a report to the prosecution requesting it to file a petition with prayers to the tribunal to show the five detained Jamaat leaders arrested in the charges under the Act. Except the four top Jammat leaders, party Nayeb-e-Ameer Delwar Hossain Sayedee also arrested.

The report has been sent to the prosecution as the investigation agency has adequate materials about the Jamaat leaders’ involvement in different war crimes related cases, he said.

“As the five Jamaat leaders are already in custody, it is needed to show them arrested under the Act,” the investigator said.

Four cases have already been transferred to the Tribunal from Dhaka and Pirojpur courts against some of the accused including the five.

Earlier, the investigation agency had visited a number of war crime scenes and gathered information and collected documents.

The prosecution feels that the government has already arrested some war crime suspects in other cases and if they (suspects) are not kept confined at this moment, the trial proceedings against them could be hampered, he said.

All the cases, which have already been filed across the country on charges of committing crimes during the Liberation War, will be placed before the Tribunal for trial, as any other court cannot try such cases as per the International Crimes Tribunal (Amendment) Act, 1973, he added.

The sources told more names would be placed before the Tribunal gradually as per the materials on specific allegations seeking direction to arrest or detain them.

The government has recently sent a list of 40 people in the immigration offices of the air and land ports with their photographs as suspected war criminals.

The aim of sending the list is that they cannot leave the country to avoid trial in the Tribunal.

Nizami, Mojahid, Sayedee, Qamaruzzaman and Quader Mollah have been arrested in last 25 days on different charges.

Besides, a Dhaka court on July 22 sent to the Tribunal a case filed with Keraniganj police against Nizami, Mojahid, Qamaruzzaman, Quader and five others for killing freedom fighters in 1971.

Earlier on July 21, another Dhaka court sent another case to the Tribunal filed with Pallabi police on charge of killing 345 people during the Liberation War.

On January 25, 2008, Mohammad Amir Hossain Mollah, a wounded freedom fighter and resident of Pallabi’s Duaripara, filed this case with Pallabi police accusing Nizami, Mojahid, Qamaruzzaman, Quader and three other Jamaat men, and three non-Bangalees for the massacre of 345 people.

A Pirojpur court on July 21 sent two war crimes related cases filed in the district against Sayedee to the Tribunal.

The sources say the Tribunal chairman and two members can either sit in the courtroom to consider the first petition of the prosecution or deal it in their chamber in the old High Court building, where the much-awaited Tribunal was set up in March this year.

“The Tribunal started functioning since its formation in March. The judges formulated rules and procedures of the court and discharged other necessary duties. But this petition would be the first proceedings of the court,” said the prosecutor.

Physicists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have seen several candidates for the heaviest elementary particle known to science.
If the observations are confirmed, it would be a first for Europe; so far, the top quark particle has only been generated by one lab in the US.
Dr Arnaud Lucotte said the discovery could assist physicists in the hunt for the elusive Higgs boson, or “God particle”.
Details of the top quark candidates were presented at a major particle physics conference in Paris.
The International Conference on High Energy Physics (ICHEP) runs from 22-28 July.
The Large Hadron Collider is operated by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (Cern), based in Geneva.
The LHC is a giant accelerator machine housed in a 27km-long (17 miles) tunnel under the French-Swiss border.
Two beams of proton particles are fired around the giant subterranean “ring” and smashed together at crossing points located around the tunnel.
Giant experiments are located at these crossing points to look for new particles in the sub-atomic wreckage of the collisions.
‘Striking event’
Several possible detections of top quarks have been made recently by the LHC’s Atlas and Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiments.
Atlas has seen nine collision events compatible with the top quark; CMS has observed 3-4 candidate events. But physicists stressed that more data was needed in order to support the conclusive observation of top quark production at the LHC.
The detection of the top quark would represent a small milestone for the European lab, which is making steady progress after the accident which forced it to shut down for 14 months shortly after its “switch on” in 2008.
And top quark physics is not well explained; studying it presents the opportunity to carry out important scientific work at the LHC.
The top quark was first discovered in 1995 by the Tevatron accelerator, operated by Fermilab in Illinois. Since then, the US accelerator has produced the particles in abundance. But they have never been produced outside Fermilab.
In a presentation at ICHEP, particle physicist Tim Christiansen said events observed by the CMS experiment included one “striking” top quark candidate.
Dr Arnaud Lucotte, from the French National Centre of Scientific Research (CNRS) told BBC News that the top quark was “well coupled” to the Higgs boson. In other words, there is thought to be a special interaction between these two particles.
Hunting the Higgs
Despite decades trying, particle physicists have so far failed to detect the Higgs. The boson particle is crucial to the current theory which has been devised to explain the interactions of sub-atomic particles, known as the Standard Model.
But rival physicists working at the Tevatron machine now believe the Higgs is within reach of the US accelerator.
They now hope to detect the elusive particle themselves, especially if the Tevatron’s lifetime can be extended by three years until 2014, as is currently being discussed.
If the Higgs boson exists in a form known as the charged Higgs, Dr Lucotte explained, the top quark could be crucial to detecting it.
Elementary particles generated at colliders “decay”, or transform, into other sub-atomic particles, which may or may not be stable.
The close coupling of the charged Higgs to the top quark means that, if the Higgs boson is heavier than the top quark, it might reveal itself by decaying into a top quark and another particle known as a b-quark.
If the Higgs is lighter, then the top quark might decay into a Higgs and a b-quark.
Other physicists envisage a different type of Higgs, one which fits the constraints of the Standard Model.
The top quark might also act as the progenitor for so-called “supersymmetric” particles. These would represent an entirely new class of particles, predicted to exist by theorists, but which have yet to be observed at particle accelerators.

They are among the true monsters of space – colossal stars whose size and brightness go well beyond what many scientists thought was even possible.
One of the objects, known simply as R136a1, is the most massive ever found.
The star is seen to have a mass about 265 times that of our own Sun; but the latest modelling work suggests at birth it could have been bigger, still.
Perhaps as much as 320 times that of the Sun, says Professor Paul Crowther from Sheffield University, UK.
“If it replaced the Sun in our Solar System, it would outshine [it] by as much as the Sun currently outshines the full Moon,” the astronomer told BBC News.
The stars were identified by Crowther’s team using a combination of new observations on the Very Large Telescope facility in Chile and data gathered previously with the Hubble Space Telescope.
R136, a cluster of young, massive and hot stars (ESO). Astronomer Maggie Aderin-Pocock explains why the discovery is significant
The group studied the NGC 3603 and RMC 136a clusters – regions of space where thick clouds of gas and dust are collapsing into even denser clumps.
In these places, huge stars ignite to burn brief but brilliant lives before exploding as supernovas to seed the Universe with heavy elements.
NGC 3603 is relatively close in cosmic terms – just 22,000 light-years distant. RMC 136a (more often nicknamed R136) is slightly further away, and is sited within one of our neighbouring galaxies, the Large Magellanic Cloud, some 165,000 light-years away.
The team found several stars with surface temperatures over 40,000 degrees – more than seven times hotter than our Sun.
The research shows these young stellar objects to be unbelievably bright, truly massive and also extremely wide – perhaps 30 times the radius of our Sun in the case of R136a1.
Up close the stars would look a mess, however. Unlike our Sun which appears as a defined disc on the sky, the giants identified by Professor Crowther and colleagues would be losing so much material through powerful winds from their puffed up atmospheres that they would have a fuzzy look about them.
One thing seems for sure – no planets would exist in orbit about them.
“Planets take longer to form than these stars take to live and die. Even if there were planets, there would be no astronomers on them because the night sky would be almost as bright as the day in these clusters,” Professor Crowther joked.
“Some of these big stars are relatively close to each other, so even at ‘night’ you’d have another very bright star shining on you.”
Previously observed giants had been seen to get as big as 150 times the mass of our Sun. The latest findings raise interesting questions about what the upper limits on size might be.
Ordinarily, there should come a point where the pressure from all the radiation emitted by a stellar behemoth pushes back against any further infall of gas and dust. In other words, there ought to be a physical barrier to excessive star growth.
But Professor Crowther adds a second factor – that of resource. There may not exist in today’s Universe places that have sufficient supplies of gas and dust to feed ever more massive stars.
However, the new observations do give a tantalising glimpse of what the very early Universe might have been like. Many objects in the very first population of stars to shine shortly after the Big Bang are thought to have been monsters like R136a1.
When these objects blew apart, their cataclysmic demise was so violent they may not have left behind a remnant core of material as is often the case following a supernova; or even a black hole which is another common consequence, too.
Instead, these giants may simply have dumped all their contents back into space, dispersing heavy elements like iron equivalent to the mass of 10 of our Suns.
“The bigger picture to this research is that it gives us confidence that there were probably more of these really massive stars in much greater numbers early on in the Universe,” Professor Crowther told BBC News.
The new results appear in a paper in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.