The Field around Yellow Hypergiant Star HR 5171 (IMAGE)

ESO

The Field around Yellow Hypergiant Star HR 5171

Caption

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 1,300 times that of the Sun -- one of the 10 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.

Credit

ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2

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