WOH G64
Red hypergiant · IRAS 04553-6825
First star outside the Milky Way imaged in close-up
One of the largest stars known, a swollen red hypergiant some 1,500 times the Sun's width wrapped in a thick cocoon of gas it has shed. In 2024 it became the first star outside the Milky Way ever photographed in close-up, by combining four telescopes in the Chilean desert.
Illustration generated from temperature, not a photograph
20.0 ☉
mass (the Sun = 1)
281,838 ×
as bright as the Sun
3,400 K
surface · red
1,540 R☉
radius (the Sun = 1)
163,000 ly
from Earth
17.7
apparent magnitude
Faint: large telescope needed10"+ (250 mm) telescope, dark sky · apparent magnitude 17.7
It pours out about 281,838 times the Sun’s light. Its light has been travelling 163,000 years to reach us, so you see WOH G64 as it was 163,000 years ago.
Source · Ohnaka et al. 2024, A&A 691, L15
It lives in
Large Magellanic Cloud
Irregular galaxy, 163,000 ly away.
Other notable stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud
R136a1Wolf-Rayet star (WN5h)R136a2Wolf-Rayet star (WN5h)Melnick 42O-type supergiant (O2 If)VFTS 682Wolf-Rayet star (WN5h)HD 269810O-type giant (O2 III)Melnick 34Wolf-Rayet binary (WN5h + WN5h)
Stars of similar brightness
AlnilamBlue supergiant271,019 ×VY Canis MajorisRed hypergiant269,774 ×AlnitakHot blue supergiant250,035 ×DenebBlue-white supergiant195,884 ×MintakaHot blue giant multiple star190,108 ×Sanduleak -69° 202Blue supergiant (B3 Ia)100,000 ×
Worlds in the same direction on the sky→