What is the Eddington Limit?
The Eddington limit, also called the Eddington luminosity, is the point at which the luminosity emitted by a star or active galaxy is so extreme that it starts blowing off the outer layers of the object. Physically speaking, it is the greatest luminosity that can pass through a gas in hydrostatic equilibrium, meaning that greater luminosities destroy the equilibrium. Hydrostatic equilibrium is the quality that keeps a star round and approximately the same size over time. The Eddington limit is named after the British astrophyicist Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, a contemporary of Einstein who was famous for confirming the general theory of relativity using eclipse observations. In an actual star, the Eddington limit is likely reached around 120 solar masses, at which point a star starts ejecting its envelope through intense solar wind. Wolf-Rayet stars are massive stars showing Eddington limit effects, ejecting .001% of their mass through solar wind per year. Nuclear reactions in stars a
