An extremely rare class of stars that are among the most massive and luminous known, with masses exceeding 100 times that of the Sun. These stars are so unstable that they constantly lose mass through powerful stellar winds and have very short lifespans.
From Greek 'hyper' meaning over or beyond, combined with 'giant'. The term was introduced in the late 20th century to describe stars even more extreme than supergiants.
Hypergiants are so massive and unstable that they're literally tearing themselves apart with their own radiation! Stars like Eta Carinae have already ejected several solar masses of material and could explode as hypernovae at any moment.
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