Betelgeuse and its gas plume, illustration. Betelgeuse, a red supergiant, is one of the largest stars currently known, with a radius around 1400 times larger than the Sun's. This supergiant star has a giant plume of gas almost as large as the solar system, and a massive bubble boiling on its surface. These structures were detected using the ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT). This discovery helps to explain how supergiant stars shed material at a tremendous rate. Betelguese is located around 600 light years from Earth, in the constellation of Orion. For this image with labels and a scale, see C048/0819. Image published in 2009.