Betelgeuse

red supergiant · the shoulder of Orion

548 light-years from Earth

Placed where the Sun is, it would swallow Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. Its surface is a few giant boiling cells; in 2019-20 it dimmed when it coughed out a cloud of dust. It will explode as a supernova.

• 764 times the Sun's radius · 3.6 AU · 548 light-years
• about 100,000 times as luminous as the Sun, and only ~10 million years old

kind

star

size

7.1 AU across