A massive, but cranky, star is belting out immense outbursts of gas as
it nears the end of its lifecycle
A massive,
but cranky, star is belting out
immense outbursts of gas as it nears the end of its lifecycle.
Known as a
hypergiant star because of its high luminosity, the bright object VY Canis
Majoris is seen here in two views taken by the space-based Hubble Space Telescope and
the ground-based Keck Observatory in Hawaii.
Over the
last 1,000 years, VY Canis Majoris has belched enormous eruptions in the form
of loops, arcs and knots of material that flew out at various spends and in
numerous directios.
VY Canis
Majoris is though to be up to 40 times as massive as the Sun and shine about 500,000 times brighter
from its perch about 5,000 light-years away. Astronomers have studied the star
for well over the last century.
The star is
so large, that if it took the Sun’s place in our solar system, its surface could
extend out to the orbit of Saturn.
-- SPACE.com Staff
Credit: NASA, ESA, and R. Humphreys (University of Minnesota)
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