Betelgeuse, which marks Orion the Hunter’s right shoulder, is a red supergiant star. In 1996, it became the first star other than the Sun to be directly imaged. This Hubble Space Telescope image shows the star’s atmosphere; the large, bright spot visible in the center is roughly twice as wide as Earth’s orbit around the Sun and 2,000 kelvins hotter than the surface of Betelgeuse.
Andrea Dupree (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA), Ronald Gilliland (STScI), NASA and ESA