Red hypergiant
VY Canis Majoris
VY Canis Majoris is a red hypergiant in the constellation Canis Major, about 3,900 light-years away. Its radius is around 1,400 solar radii; placed in the Sun's position its surface would lie well beyond Jupiter's orbit.
The star loses mass heavily and is surrounded by a large, irregular cloud of ejected gas and dust. Hubble and the Very Large Telescope have photographed this shell (see gallery).
It is unstable and will probably end as a supernova or hypernova.
Key facts
- Distance
- ≈ 3,900 light-years
- Star radius
- ≈ 1,400 solar radii
- Star mass
- ≈ 17 solar masses
- Brightness
- variable, ≈ 6.5–9.6 mag
Images
More famous objects
Images: NASA, ESA, ESO, Event Horizon Telescope, Wikimedia Commons. Artist's impressions are labelled as such. Figures from published research, rounded.