The red hypergiant star VY Canis Majoris is much larger and more massive than the star Betelgeuse. The hypergiant has begun to dim
New data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope suggests that this hypergiant undergoes the same processes as Betelgeuse, but on a larger scale.
Betelgeuse's eclipse was associated with gasa stream that may have created dust that obscured part of Betelgeuse's light. A similar thing happened with VY Canis Majoris, but on a much larger scale. The massive ejections that caused the dimming temporarily blocked light from the star.
Giant arcs of plasma surround the star ata distance thousands of times greater than the distance from the Earth to the Sun. These arcs are similar to the solar prominences of our own Sun, only on a much larger scale. In addition, they are not physically connected to the star, but rather were ejected and are now moving in the opposite direction from the star.
In the new work, the authors found that theseeruptions of plasma arcs occurred around the 19th and 20th centuries, when VY Canis Majoris sharply dimmed. Now, during the next dimming, VY Canis Majoris may be in a unique evolutionary state, the authors suggest.
Due to these emissions VY Canis Majoris,may have already lost half of its mass. Instead of exploding as a supernova, the star may simply collapse straight into a black hole. The authors of the work stated that observations of the celestial body continue.
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