<Tr> <Td> SIMBAD </Td> <Td> data </Td> </Tr> <P> VY Canis Majoris (abbreviated to VY CMa) is an extreme oxygen - rich (O - rich) red hypergiant (RHG) or red supergiant (RSG) and pulsating variable star located at 1.2 kiloparsecs (3,900 ly) away from Earth in the constellation of Canis Major . It is one of the largest known stars by radius, and is also one of the most luminous and massive red supergiants, as well as one of the most luminous stars in the Milky Way . </P> <P> VY CMa is a single star with a large infrared (IR) excess, making it one of the brightest objects in the sky at wavelengths of between 5 and 20 microns (μm) and indicating a dust shell or disk heated by the star . It is about 7001170000000000000 ♠ 17 ± 8 times the mass of the Sun (M). It is also surrounded by a complex asymmetric circumstellar envelope (CSE) caused by mass loss from the star itself . It produces strong molecular maser emission and was one of the first radio masers discovered . VY CMa is embedded within the large molecular cloud Sharpless 310 (Sh2 - 310), one of largest star - forming H ii region with a diameter of 480 arcminutes (') or 681 ly (209 pc). </P> <P> The radius of VY CMa is about 1,420 times that of the Sun (R), which is close to the Hayashi limit and corresponds to a volume about 3 billion times bigger than the Sun . A hypothetical object travelling at the speed of light would take 6 hours to travel around the star's circumference, compared to 14.5 seconds for the Sun . If placed at the center of the Solar System, VY CMa's surface would extend beyond the orbit of Jupiter, although there is still considerable variation in estimates of the radius, with some making it larger than the orbit of Saturn . </P>

How many times bigger is vy canis majoris than our sun