Rho

Its story

Rho Cassiopeiae is one of the most extraordinary stars in the sky: a yellow hypergiant whose distance is measured in thousands of light-years and whose luminosity is hundreds of thousands of times that of the Sun. From time to time it undergoes singular eruptions in which its atmosphere cools abruptly and ejects masses equivalent to whole planets. It is a direct candidate to explode as a supernova on astronomically short timescales —that is, anywhere between tomorrow and a few tens of thousands of years.