images

Hypergiant star HR 5171

by

ESO/DSS2/Novapix

Reference

a-eto02-00080

Date

2017-01-29

HR 5171, the brightest star just below the centre of this wide-field image, is a yellow hypergiant, a very rare type of stars with only a dozen known in our galaxy. Its size is over 1300 times that of the Sun — one of the ten largest stars found so far. Observations with ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer have shown that it is actually a double star, with the companion in contact with the main star.