Skyscript Astrology Forum

If you are a visual type this short little film helps give an inkling of our place in the immense vastness of the Cosmos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEheh1BH34Q

For the audial type this cant be beat:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buqtdpuZxvk

Mark

Yes ! but can they sledge like us

Seasons Greetings everyone.

PD

Astronomers don't know how big the biggest star in the universe is, but one astronomer says he has a rough idea .

Astronomers don't know how big the biggest star in the universe is, but one astronomer says he has a rough idea.

Well we do know the largest star that we can currently detect in our galaxy. The monstor star in question 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. 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.