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Frank Said : [On June 7th, 2007 at 8:07 am]
“Any real possibility that these two stars could collide someday?”

If their orbits decay quickly enough they may actually _merge_ forming a peanut shaped contact binary like W Ursae majoris or ER Vulpeculae forming an FK Comae Berenice type star with the combined masses of both stars … !!

So 114 + 84 = A single 198 mass hypergiant — WHOOOAAAA!!!!

That ’s assuming the fusion of the twain doesn’t then blow itself apart having grossly exceeded the Eddington limit … as would Isuppose probabaly happen -creating some sort of huge nebula or perhaps a supernova .. ??? Any modelling done yet on these stars evolution over time … ??

Eta Carinae, incidentally, was listed by James B. Kaler, a stellar expert (author, Professor & sometimes ‘Astronomy’ magazine contributer)
as a binary with a 60 solarmass Wolf-Rayet star & an 80 solar mass B0 blue hypergiant star orbiting each other every 5.6 years.

So ‘Macz’ & y’all, Stellar mergers or collisions can and do happen – with the provisio that this happens in binary and multiple stellar systems.

BTW. These must be astonishing super-luminous stars – any idea of th absolute Magnitudes (visual & bolometric) and spectral types, folks?

Finally, is it true that there are no stars “earlier” than type O3 (ie no O0, O1, O2 stars) known? Could these be the first examples ever found?

I’m also enlightened by the insight about star masses. I didn’t know that Eta Car’s mass wasn’t actually confirmed like this star was. The same holds true for the Pistol star, I assume?

Well, even 114 solar masses is BIG.