A 2010 study of WR 124 directly measured the expansion rate of the M1-67 nebula expelled from the star using Hubble Space Telescope camera images taken 11 years apart, and compared that to the expansion velocity measured by the Doppler shift of the nebular emission lines. This yielded a distance of, which is less than previous studies, and the resulting luminosity of 150,000 times the Sun is much lower than previously calculated. The luminosity is also lower than predicted by models for a star of this spectral class. Previous studies had found distances of to, with corresponding luminosities of, as expected for a typical WN8h which is a very young star just moving away from the main sequence. The Gaia satellite measured the distance to WR 124 from its parallax, giving a distance of.
Physical characteristics
With an assumed visual absolute magnitude of -7.22 and 3.1 magnitudes of extinction, WR 124 would be away. The temperature of around 40,000K means that most of its energy is emitted at ultraviolet wavelengths, the bolometric luminosity is and the radius is. The mass is calculated from evolutionary models to be. WR 124 is measured to still be about 15% hydrogen with most of the remaining mass being helium. A young highly massive and luminous WN8h star would still be burning hydrogen in its core, but a less luminous and older star would be burning helium in its core. The result of modelling the star purely from its observed characteristics is a luminosity of and a mass of, corresponding to a relatively young hydrogen-burning star at around. In either case, it has only a few hundred thousand years before it explodes as a type Ib or Ic supernova. The mass loss rate is – per year, depending on the distance and properties determined for the star.
Nebula
WR 124 is surrounded by an intensely hot nebula formed from the star's extreme stellar wind. The nebula M1-67 is expanding at a rate of over and is nearly 6 light-years across, leading to the dynamical age of 20,000 years. M1-67 has little internal structure, though large clumps of material have been detected, some of which have 30 times the mass of Earth and stretch out up to. If placed in the Solar System, one of these clumps would span the distance from the Sun to Saturn.
