UY Scuti was first catalogued in 1860 by German astronomers at the Bonn Observatory, who were completing a survey of stars for the Bonner Durchmusterung Stellar Catalogue. It was designated BD-12°5055, the 5,055th star between 12°S and 13°S counting from 0h right ascension. UY Scuti is a red supergiant star, which is usually an aging star. Stars with a big enough mass transform into red supergiant stars. They are the largest known type of stars. They usually form when a star runs out of hydrogen fuel in their core and begins collapsing. UY Scuti is thought to have a mass only slightly more than 30 times the mass of our sun. But its radius is thought to be something like 1,700 times greater than the radius of the sun. That would make this star is nearly eight astronomical units across – that's eight times the distance between the Earth and sun. UY Scuti is a variable hypergiant with a radius around 1,700 times larger than the radius of the sun. To put that in perspective, the volume of almost 5 billion suns could fit inside a sphere the size of UY scuti. UY Scuti is located in or galaxy the Milky Way, at about 5.219 light-years away from Earth. UY Scuti changes its brightness but it can be viewed from Earth as it is a pulsating star. It has an absolute magnitude of -6.2, UY Scuti is thus 340.000 times more luminous than our Sun. Stellar evolution models tell that UY Scuti has already left the main sequence and has started fusing helium in its core. This means it is left with just 10% of its life. Stars like these have a short lifespan of a few million years compared to trillions of years for red dwarfs. When it die, it's expected to explode with the force of more than 100 supernovas. A supernova is the explosion of a star, and it's the largest explosion that takes place in space. So the force of 100 stars exploding would obliterate everything nearby. UY Scuti is releasing much more heat energy than the sun, but its surface is cooler. It's kind of like the difference between a candle an an electric blanket. UY Scuti is a red supergiant star located in the direction of Scutum constellation. With an estimated radius of 1,708 solar radii, it is a previous record holder for the largest star known. In a plane It would take you 1.8 days to fly around the Earth. At that rate it would take you 205 days to fly around the Sun. But to fly around UY Scuti, it would take you 1086 years. Some would say the largest object in the universe is UY Scuti, the largest known star. It's a red supergiant with a mass “only” 7–10 times the mass of the Sun, but with a radius up to 1,708 times the size! That's only 0.3% the size of TON 618, but obviously still stupendously large.

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