BiGGest Star in the universe...
Which is the biggest star in the universe ? This is one of the most common questions about universe that arise in our minds...So i decided to do a little research on it and what i found was absolutely amazing...
Before we jump straight to the answer, let’s take a look at our own Sun for a sense of scale. Our familiar star Sun is a mighty 1.4 million km across (870,000 miles).That’s such a huge number that it’s hard to get a sense of scale. The Sun accounts for 99.9% of all the matter in our Solar System.
*In fact, you could fit one million (10,00,000) planet Earths inside the Sun.
Term used for measurement:
Astronomers use the terms “solar radius” and “solar mass” to compare large and smaller stars, so we’ll do the same. A solar radius is 690,000 km (432,000 miles) and 1 solar mass is 2 x 10^30 kilograms (4.3 x 10^30 pounds). That’s 2,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kg.
Largest Star Ever Found:
 |
| Largest Star |
The largest known star is VY Canis Majoris; a red hypergiant star in the Canis Major constellation, located about 5,000 light-years from Earth. University of Minnesota professor Roberta Humphreys recently calculated its upper size at more than 2,100 times the size of the Sun. Placed in our Solar System, its surface would extend out past the orbit of Saturn.
*Light takes more than 8 hours to cross its circumference!
Some astronomers disagree, and think that VY Canis Majoris might be smaller; merely 600 times the size of the Sun, extending past the orbit of Mars. |
| Biggest Star |
That’s the biggest star that we know of !!! But the Milky way probably has dozens of stars that are even larger, obscured by gas and dust so we can’t see them.
But let’s see if we can work out the original question, what’s the biggest star in the Universe? Obviously, it’s impossible for us to actually find it – the Universe is a big place, and there’s no way we can peer into every corner.
So what is the biggest Star Possible?
Roberta Humphreys from the University of Minnesota, the researcher who calculated the size of VY Canis Majoris , noted that the largest stars are the coolest. So even though Eta Carinae is the most luminous star we know of, it’s extremely hot – 25,000 Kelvin – and so only a mere 400 solar radii.
The largest stars will be the cool supergiants. For example, VY Canis Majoris is only 3,500 Kelvin. A really big star would be even cooler. At 3,000 Kelvin, a cool supergiant would be 2,600 times the size of the Sun.That, she believes, is the largest possible star.
