WOH G64
Sign in to savered hypergiant star in the constellation Dorado, possibly the largest well-defined star known by radius
Astronomical data · SIMBAD
- Object type
- Mi*
- Spectral type
- M7.5(I)e
- Coordinates
- RA 73.7938° · Dec -68.3417°
via SIMBAD · CDS Strasbourg
Key facts
- Constellation
- Dorado
- Right ascension
- 04 55 10.5252
- Declination
- −68 ° 20 ′ 29.998 ″
- Apparent magnitude v
- 17.7–18.8
- Evolutionary stage
- OH/IR extreme red supergiant or red hypergiant
- Spectral type
- M5I –M7.5e
- Variable type
- Slow irregular variable + symbiotic
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Part of
- Large Magellanic Cloud
- Constellation
- Dorado
- Diameter
- 2140000000
- Radius
- 1730
- Variable-star type
- long-period variable star
- Image
- WOH G64 Particular.jpg
Show 9 more facts
- Commons category
- WOH G64
- spectral class
- M5
- catalog code
- Gaia DR2 4661527262798576768
- right ascension
- 73.79385513082030
- declination
- -68.34166624171350
- apparent magnitude
- 6.849
- epoch
- J2000.0
- right ascension component of proper motion
- 1.108
- declination component of proper motion
- -1.348
via Wikidata · CC0
~10 min read
Encyclopedic overview
WOH G64 (IRAS 04553–6825) is a symbiotic binary in the Large Magellanic Cloud, roughly 50 kiloparsecs (163,000 light-years) from Earth.
The primary component is an extreme red supergiant or red hypergiant that may be the largest known star with a well-defined radius, calculated to be around 1,540 times that of the Sun (R☉). At this radius, an object travelling at the speed of light would take over 6 hours to go around its surface, compared to just 14.5 seconds for the Sun. It is also one of the most luminous and massive red supergiants, with a luminosity around 282,000 times the solar luminosity (L☉) and a mass roughly 20 times that of the Sun (M☉). If placed at the center of the Solar System, the star's photosphere would engulf the orbit of Jupiter. The secondary component, being recently confirmed, is comparatively nowhere near as well-studied but it is at least understood to be a B-type star.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “WOH G64” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.