Astronomers reveal \\\'largest yellow star ever\\\'
March 14, 2014 00:00:00
WASHINGTON, Mar 13 (AFP): Astronomers have spotted the largest yellow star ever observed in our galaxy and 1,300 times larger than the sun.
The yellow hypergiant star HR 5171 A is also in the top-10 of the largest stars known and about one million times brighter than the sun, Olivier Chesneau, whose team made the discovery, said Wednesday.
Despite its great distance of nearly 12,000 light-years from earth, the object can just about be seen with the naked eye.
"The new observations also showed that this star has a very close binary partner, which was a real surprise," said Chesneau, of the Observatoire de la Cote d'Azur, in Nice, France.
"The two stars are so close that they touch and the whole system resembles a gigantic peanut."
His team estimated the star is 50 percent larger than the famous red supergiant Betelgeuse.
