Bismillah. Allah Akbar! This infrared image from NASA’s WISE (Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer) features one of the bright stars in the constellation Perseus, named Menkhib (the bright star in the upper left near the red dust cloud) along with a large star forming cloud catalogued as NGC 1499, or more commonly called the California Nebula (running diagonally through the image).
Menkhib is one of the hottest stars visible in the night sky; its surface temperature is about 37,000 Kelvin (about 66,000 degrees Fahrenheit – over 6 times hotter than the Sun). Because of its high temperature it appears blue-white to the human eye (almost all stars appear bluish to WISE). It has about 40 times the mass of the Sun and gives off 330,000 times the amount of light.
