The
largest ever yellow star, measuring 1,300 times the size of our Sun, has
been discovered nearly 12,000 light-years from Earth.
The star, dubbed HR 5171 A, located in the constellation Centaurus is the largest
known member of the family of yellow stars to which our Sun belongs.
It
is also one of the ten largest stars found so far - 50 per cent larger than the
famous red supergiant Betelgeuse - and about one million times brighter than
the Sun. The team led by Oliver Chesneau
of the Cote d'Azur Observatory in Nice, France, which studied the star with the
Very Large Telescope in Atacama, Chile found that the yellow hypergiant star is
much bigger than was expected, measuring 1,300 times the diameter of the Sun.
The
team also discovered that HR 5171 A has a companion star. The companion star
orbits HR 5171 A every 1,300 days.