Table of Contents
How big is the biggest known star?
VY Canis Majoris, ranging from 1,300 to 1,540 solar radii. This red hypergiant star was previously estimated to be 1,800 to 2,200 solar radii, but that size put it outside the bounds of stellar evolutionary theory. New measurements brought it down to size. (Some sources still list it as the largest star.)
Is there anything bigger than the Milky Way?
The Milky Way is big, but some galaxies, like our Andromeda Galaxy neighbor, are much larger. The universe is all of the galaxies – billions of them!
How big is the largest star in the universe?
1.540 solar radii
Consider WOH G64, a red supergiant star located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, approximately 168,000 light years from Earth. At 1.540 solar radii in diameter, this star is currently one of the largest in the known universe.
How big is Milky Way compared to other galaxies?
The Milky Way is an averagely large galaxy with a diameter of 100 000 light years and about 200 billion to 400 billion stars; but compared to larger galaxies like M100, M 87, NGC 4921 or Hercules A, the Milky Way looks like a dwarf galaxy.
What is the largest known star in the Milky Way galaxy?
Answer: The largest known star (in terms of mass and brightness) is called the Pistol Star. It is believed to be 100 times as massive as our Sun, and 10,000,000 times as bright! In 1990, a star named the Pistol Star was known to lie at the center of the Pistol Nebula in the Milky Way Galaxy.
How many stars does the Milky Way have?
100 thousand million stars
The Sun belongs to a galaxy called the Milky Way. Astronomers estimate there are about 100 thousand million stars in the Milky Way alone.
Is the Milky Way bigger than Andromeda?
By some estimates, the Andromeda Galaxy contains roughly one trillion stars. That’s significantly bigger than the Milky Way, which more recent estimates suggest is 150,000 light-years across (though the exact boundary of where either of these galaxies “end” is a bit nebulous).