Image Source The bright star at the upper right is VY CMa
VY Canis Majoris (VY CMa) is a red supergiant and pulsating variable star located 3,900 light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Canis Major. It is the largest known star and is one of the brightest and massive red supergiants. It is not known who discovered the star, but the first recorded observation is in the catalog of the French astronomer Jérôme Lalande, on 7 March 1801.
VY CMa is about 17±8 times the mass of the Sun (M☉). It is surrounded by an asymmetric red reflection nebula which is caused by mass loss (0.2-0.4 M☉) from the star. The nebula is so bright that it was discovered in 1917 with an 18 cm telescope. It is situated in the molecular cloud Sharpless 310, which is one of the largest star-forming regions with a diameter of 681 ly.
VY CMa has a diameter of around 1,420–2,000 times that of the Sun and by volume nearly 3–10 billion times bigger than the Sun. An object traveling at the speed of light will take 6-9 hours to travel around the star, in comparison to 14.5 seconds around the Sun. It is a variable star that varies in brightness from a magnitude +6.5 to +9.6. VY Canis Majoris is among the extreme stars in the Milky Way with a temperature below 3,730°C (6,740°F).
VY CMa has evolved rapidly due to its high mass with an age of less than 10 million years. It is estimated that the red hypergiant phase started 100,000 and 500,000 years ago. It has already started to fuse helium into carbon, whereas our Sun is in the main sequence fusing hydrogen into helium. The future is uncertain and like most other cool supergiants it will certainly explode as a supernova.
Source: Wikipedia
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