Zooming in on the Yellow Hypergiant Star HR 5171 | ESO

Zooming in on the Yellow Hypergiant Star HR 5171 | ESO

This zoom sequence takes us from a wide view of the spectacular southern Milky Way into a closeup view of one of its biggest and rarest stars—the yellow hypergiant star HR 5171. This monster stars has a radius over 1,300 times that of the Sun—it is one of the largest ten stars found so far.

 Observations with the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) have shown that it is actually a double star, with the companion in contact with the main star.

Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO)/Nick Risinger/Digitized Sky Survey 2

Duration: 58 seconds

Release Date: March 13, 2014

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