On the basis of far-infrared images obtained by the Herschel Space Observatory, we report the discovery of a large and massive dust shell around the yellow hypergiant Hen3-1379 . The nebula appears as a detached ring of 1 pc diameter which contains 0.17 Msun of dust. We estimate the total gas mass to be 7 Msun, ejected some 16000 years ago. The ring nebula is very similar to nebulae found around luminous blue variables (LBVs) except it is not photoionized. We argued that Hen3-1379 is in a pre-LBV stage, providing direct evidence that massive LBV ring nebulae can be ejected during the red supergiant phase.
@article{arxiv.1303.4292,
title = {A massive parsec-scale dust ring nebula around the yellow hypergiant Hen3-1379},
author = {D. Hutsemekers and N. L. J. Cox and C. Vamvatira-Nakou},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1303.4292},
year = {2015}
}