A star that makes our Sun look like a grain of sand. A stellar monster so vast that if it replaced the Sun, its surface would stretch past the orbit of Jupiter. This is Behemoth. And it may not be the largest.

In 2024, astronomers captured the first detailed image of a star outside our galaxy — WOH G64, nicknamed the Behemoth star [citation:6][citation:10]. Located 163,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud, this red supergiant measures approximately 1,500 times the diameter of our Sun [citation:1][citation:8]. For years, scientists watched its brightness dim and thought a supernova was imminent. But new research published in Nature Astronomy revealed something unexpected: the star is rapidly changing color from red to yellow, transforming into a rare yellow hypergiant [citation:3][citation:8]. The cause remains a mystery. No current stellar models can fully explain this transformation.

But is Behemoth truly the largest? The title of biggest known star belongs to UY Scuti, a red supergiant in our own galaxy with a radius 1,700 times that of the Sun [citation:2][citation:7]. Yet UY Scuti is not the heaviest. That crown goes to R136a1, a blazing blue star with 300 times the Sun's mass but only 30 times its radius [citation:7]. Behemoth is a contender for size — but the universe is full of surprises.

Turn down the lights, put on your headphones, and press play because the largest star may still be waiting to be discovered.