The universe is very vast, there are countless planets, we humans live on the Earth, but also is just an ordinary planet.
Since the development of technology, human beings can go out of the Earth to explore the universe. Originally in the eyes of mankind has been very large Earth, after entering space only to find that the solar system in the larger than the Earth’s planets there are many, in the solar system outside, more than a myriad.
How big is the largest star in the universe?
In the solar system, the center is the Sun, and the Sun is a star, our Earth is indeed very small compared to the Sun. The Sun is 109 times the diameter of the Earth and 1.3 million times the size of the Sun. In fact, the Sun is 99.86% of the total mass in our solar system. Even such a large sun, put into the universe, is just an ordinary star, and in the universe of the stellar family, the sun is not big, than it is a lot of big stars.
So some people are very curious about how big is the biggest star in the universe? Although the scope of the universe observed by human beings is very limited, within the limited scope, the largest star observed is UY in the constellation of Shield, which is a red supergiant star with a diameter of 2.376 billion kilometers, so to speak, the speed of light around a red supergiant takes nine hours, while the beam of light around the Sun takes only 14.5 seconds.
This red supergiant is indeed very large, but its mass is actually not high, the temperature is not high, but the brightness is very high, can reach the sun 340,000 times. So this one red supergiant is also one of the brightest stars that can be observed, and because of this, scientists are able to observe it using astronomical telescopes.
In fact, if our sun had been replaced by a red supergiant, the eight planets in our solar system would have been swallowed up by five of them. The red supergiant, in fact, is nearing the end of its life, with only 10 to 50 million years left, and at the end of its real life, it will explode to form a supernova and collapse into a black hole.
According to Wikipedia, UY Shield (English: UY Scuti, UY Sct), is a red supergiant star located in the constellation Shield. It is the largest star known to man, surpassing VY Canis Major, which was previously considered the largest star.
UY is a red supergiant with a stellar spectral classification of M4Ia. The radius of this star is about 1,708 ± 192 times that of the Sun. Despite its very large size, its mass is only about 32 times the mass of the Sun, or about 10 million times the mass of the Earth. The star is not only huge in terms of volume, but also very bright. It is 340,000 times brighter than the Sun, making it one of the most luminous stars.
UY Shield is also a semi-regular variable star with a period of light change of about 740 days. With an apparent magnitude of 11.2 to 13.3, this star is not visible to the human eye and requires a telescope to see it.
This star is the largest known star to date. According to astronomers, the radius of the star is about 1,708 ± 192 times the radius of the Sun (7.05 to 8.83 astronomical units) and has a diameter of 2,375,828,000 kilometers. Its size is so large that if UY in Shield were placed at the center of the solar system, it would exceed the diameter of the orbit of Jupiter (5.204267 astronomical units, 778,547,200 km) and approach the orbit of Saturn (9.5820172 astronomical units, 1,433,449,370 km). This star can accommodate about 5 billion suns, or 6,500 trillion Earths.
Until 2012, VY Canis Major was considered to be the largest known star. At that time, University of Minnesota professor Roberta M. Humphreys predicted that the diameter of VY was about 1800 to 2100 times the radius of the Sun. However, improved measurements have allowed astronomers to find that its actual size is much smaller.
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