Indeed, the wind of zeta Pup has close to this much momentum:
Its wind is very efficient at absorbing light.
To quantify the efficiency at which a given wind makes use of the momentum of light from the star, we can form a ratio of the wind’s momentum to the momentum available in the radiation:
(Msun yr-1)
(g s-1)
(km s-1)
(cm s-1)
(g cm s-2)
(referred to as the “momentum number” or “performance number” of a radiation-driven wind)
Note: in a little over a million years, a star like z Pup will have lost an appreciable fraction of its mass! This has very serious implications for stellar evolution models, supernovae rates, etc.
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