Nu

Its story

Nu Puppis is a blue giant of the Stern, seen edge-on: it spins so fast —225 km per second at the equator— that it has flattened into an oblique disc and dragged a faint ring of hot gas around itself. Quasi-emission peaks in its spectral lines mark the signature of a Be shell star viewed in profile. At nearly 372 light-years, it shines with the light of some 1,300 suns from a surface at 12,000 K.