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)
282 thousand ×
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
It pours out about 282 thousand 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 · 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
AlnilamBlue supergiant271 thousand ×VY Canis MajorisRed hypergiant270 thousand ×AlnitakHot blue supergiant250 thousand ×DenebBlue-white supergiant196 thousand ×MintakaHot blue giant multiple star190 thousand ×Sanduleak -69° 202Blue supergiant (B3 Ia)100 thousand ×
Worlds in the same direction on the sky→