Size of planets and stars

[Liz]

I know there a a multitude of these on youtube,and have watched many, but the size of those stars continues to blow me away!!!
Great for newbies to check out where we stand in the Universe, and the relative sizes of these massive stars compared to our own Sun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdkEb...eature=related

ps.. i went looking on youtube for 'Stellar Symphony' - sounds of the stars that I have on a disc from BBCs Sky At Night mag, bloody 1 1/2 hrs later ... so much interesting stuff there.

[Strawb (Dave)]

Awesome Liz - truly humbling

[Robh (Rob)]

VY Canis Majoris is a red hypergiant of about 2000 times the diameter of the Sun. It is the largest known star. Awesome!

Regards, Rob

[Liz]

Originally Posted by Strawb

Awesome Liz - truly humbling

Absolutely Dave!! to IIS, great to have another Townsvillian on board, and now becomes clear re your new scope.

Originally Posted by Robh

VY Canis Majoris is a red hypergiant of about 2000 times the diameter of the Sun. It is the largest known star. Awesome!

How can a star be so big!! Hmm ... a red hypergiant. Gobsmacking stuff for sure.

[Suzy]

That was amazing Liz

[Darth Wader (Wade)]

No matter how many times I watch these kind of videos I can't help but be amazed at the sheer insignificance of our tiny little pale blue dot.

[M54 (Molly)]

Somehow I don't think we're finding out how big the universe is.......we're finding out just how microscopic we are.
Truly mind boggling stuff.

Thanks, Liz.

[renormalised (Carl)]

How about LBV1806-20. Nice, quiet little star....150 times the diameter of the Sun and 200 times as massive 4-40 million times brighter, depending on the mood it's in

Or larger still, some of the old Pop III stars....some of them may have been as much a 1000 times as massive as the Sun!! 1 billion times as luminous!!. That's about 22.5 magnitudes brighter than the Sun, meaning the absolute magnitude of one of those stars (when they existed) was around -17, all of the time. In other words they shone constantly about as brightly as what a supernova shines, these days!!.

To put that into perspective, the Earth could orbit one of those stars from nearly 3 light years away and still get about the same amount of light as it does from the Sun