Westerlund 1-26

Westerlund 1-26 or W26 is an extreme red supergiant and one of the largest stars known. He is in super star cluster Westerlund 1 in the constellation Ara. It is about 16,000 light years from Earth and is expected to explode as a supernova soon. This close astronomers from a ionized mist that envelops the star. This was discovered by the European Southern Observatory. Composed of hydrogen fog indicates that W26 losing mass. The fact that in 1987 similar processes in the blue supergiant Sanduleak -69 ° have already been observed 202 in the Large Magellanic Cloud, who was a supernova 1987A little later, could indicate a similar trend.

The diameter of W26 corresponds It is estimated that about 3000 solar diameters.