B324
Yellow hypergiant · [HS80] B324
Among the visually brightest stars in the Local Group
Once thought to be among the very brightest stars in the Local Group. B324 is a yellow hypergiant, a rare and short-lived phase: a massive star that has already been a red supergiant and is now ballooning back across the temperature scale, near the limit of how luminous a star can be.
Illustration generated from temperature, not a photograph
870,964 ×
as bright as the Sun
7,500 K
surface · white star
550 R☉
radius (the Sun = 1)
2.7 million ly
from Earth
14.7
apparent magnitude
Faint: large telescope needed10"+ (250 mm) telescope, dark sky · apparent magnitude 14.7
It pours out about 870,964 times the Sun’s light. Its light has been travelling 2.7 million years to reach us, so you see B324 as it was 2.7 million years ago.
Source · Humphreys et al. 2013, ApJ 773, 46
It lives in
Triangulum Galaxy
Spiral galaxy, 2.7 million ly away.
Other notable stars in the Triangulum
Stars of similar brightness
S DoradusLuminous blue variable1.0 million ×Romano's StarLuminous blue variable (post-LBV)1.0 million ×Melnick 34Wolf-Rayet binary (WN5h + WN5h)2.0 million ×HD 269810O-type giant (O2 III)2.2 million ×HD 5980Wolf-Rayet + blue-variable system2.2 million ×WOH G64Red hypergiant281,838 ×
Worlds in the same direction on the sky→