NML Cygni
red supergiant or hypergiant star in the constellation of Cygnus, possibly the largest star known by radius From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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NML Cygni or V1489 Cygni is a red hypergiant star.[1] It is one of the brightest supergiant stars.[2] It was discovered in 1965, by Gerry Neugebauer, D.M. Martz and Robert Leighton.[3] The name 'NML' comes from the names of the three discoverers.[4]
NML Cygni's distance from Earth is about 5,250 light-years.[2] This star has dust surrounding it. It has a bean-shaped asymmetric nebula with water vapour.[5] It is a semiregular variable star. This means its brightness changes over 940 days.[6] Considering its distance and an upper limit on the star's angular size,[7] its physical radius must be less than 1,350 times that of the Sun.[8]
This star is a part of the Cygnus OB2 association, which is 1.74 ± 0.2 kpc away. This is one of the nearest massive star groups to the Sun.[6] This group includes some of the most massive and brightest stars known, including the suspected luminous blue variable Cyg OB2 #12. NML Cygni has lots of oxygen.[9] Molecules like H2O, Silicon monoxide, carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide, carbon monosulfide, sulfur monoxide, sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide are also in the star.[3]
NML Cygni has two dense outer layers of dust and molecules. The star is also losing mass by slowly throwing gas into space.[3] The dust envelopes are formed by this process.[6]
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References
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