Quintuplet cluster

The Quintuplet star cluster is adjacent to the Arches star cluster one of the densest known star clusters in the Milky Way. It is located about 25 000 light -years away near the center of our galaxy in the constellation Sagittarius.

Due to the extremely strong optical extinction by dust in this region of star clusters in the visual field is invisible and only in the X-ray, infrared and radio frequency range identified. The cluster is about four million years old and has a total mass of about 10 000 solar masses. The brightest stars in the cluster are extremely massive and luminous hypergiants how QPM - 241 and the Pistol Star. Some of them are double stars that are about to explode in the form of a supernova. The Pistol Star is one with about six million times the sun's luminosity of the brightest stars known. In QPM -241 is a Wolf -Rayet star with a luminosity of about 4.5 million times the sun.