[I]n this case we're talking about the star VY Canis Majoris (or VY CMa for short). This ridiculously bloated red hypergiant is about 4,000 light years away in the constellation of Canis Major... VY CMa is an immense star, well over 2 billion kilometers wide. Observations of the star show that it is blasting out way too much infrared light for a star of its kind, which is a telltale sign that it's surrounded by dust. This is usually microscopic grains of rocky (silicate-laden) or carbonaceous (sooty) material around the star (so we call it circumstellar, which is just a...