Sanduleak -69° 202
Blue supergiant (B3 Ia) · Sk -69 202
Progenitor of Supernova 1987A
The star that exploded as Supernova 1987A, the brightest and nearest supernova seen since 1604. A blue supergiant of about 20 solar masses, it stunned astronomers by detonating from a blue rather than a red state, and its light (with a burst of neutrinos) reached Earth in February 1987.
Illustration generated from temperature, not a photograph
20.0 ☉
mass (the Sun = 1)
100 thousand ×
as bright as the Sun
16,000 K
surface · blue-white star
41 R☉
radius (the Sun = 1)
163,000 ly
from Earth
12.0
apparent magnitude
It pours out about 100 thousand times the Sun’s light. Its light has been travelling 163,000 years to reach us, so you see Sanduleak -69° 202 as it was 163,000 years ago.
Source · West et al. 1987, A&A 177, L1 · View on Wikidata
It lives in
Large Magellanic Cloud
Irregular galaxy, 163,000 ly away.
Other notable stars in 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
AntaresRed supergiant76 thousand ×HV 2112Red supergiant (Thorne-Zytkow candidate)63 thousand ×SaiphBlue supergiant60 thousand ×BetelgeuseRed supergiant60 thousand ×MintakaHot blue giant multiple star190 thousand ×DenebBlue-white supergiant196 thousand ×
Worlds in the same direction on the sky→