RS Puppis

Photo Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-Hubble/Europe Collaboration. Acknowledgment: H. Bond (STScI and Pennsylvania State University)

RS Puppis is a Cepheid variable star. This image was made by the NASA Hubble Space Telescope on March 26, 2010 with an exposure time of 35 minutes. It is a southern hemisphere star with a cocoon of reflective dust illuminated by the star. It is projected to be ten times more massive than our Sun and 200 times larger. RS Puppis rhythmically brightens and dims over a six-week cycle. It is one of the most luminous in the class of so-called Cepheid variable stars. Its average intrinsic brightness is 15,000 times greater than our Sun's luminosity. Its distance is 6,500 light years (2000 parsecs) +/- 1%.

References:
Hubble Newscenter

Image data