What is the name of the largest known star in the universe?

Answer 1

• The largest structure is the Sloan Great Wall, a giant wall of galaxies.
• The largest supercluster is possibly the Horologium Supercluster
• The largest galaxy is IC 1101
• The largest star is VY Canis Majoris.
• The largest object in our Solar System is the Sun.

• The largest structure is the Sloan Great Wall, a giant wall of galaxies.
• The largest supercluster is possibly the Horologium Supercluster
• The largest galaxy is IC 1101
• The largest star is VY Canis Majoris.
• The largest object in our Solar System is the Sun.

Answer 2

The largest known star is VY Canis Majoris [See Link] which has a diameter about 2,100 times larger than that of our Sun; this means about 9,300,000,000 Suns would fit inside (gaseous bodies like stars do not really have a definite 'surface'). See link for pictorial representation against our own Sun.

VY Canis Majoris can be found in the constellation Canis Major and is approximately 4,900 light years away.

See related link for a cool video showing how BIG VY Canis Majoris is!

In other galaxies there are probably larger stars.

Answer 3

First you must define "biggest". Are you referring to the star's diameter? To its volume? (Larger diameter means larger volume, though.) Or perhaps to its mass? On the Wikipedia you can find lists of the biggest (largest diameter) as well as the most massive stars:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_massive_stars

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_stars

"Largest" here is used in the sense of "largest in diameter".

Answer 4

The largest known star is VY Canis Majoris [See related questions]

This is the largest star known to man, but there could possibly be far larger stars.

It is a red hypergiant in the constellation Canis Major. The star is 3 billion km away from earth. If it were to be placed at the center of our solar system, its outer shell would reach beyond the orbit of Saturn and very near to Jupiter's orbit. It is a very unstable star, and is predicted to explode as a hypernova, wiping out any life within a couple of light years away. This could happen any time in the next 100,000 years, and thankfully there are no hypergiants close enough to have this catastrophic effect on Earth.

Answer 5

The biggest known nebula is Tarantula nebula at 160,000 light years from us. It's width is 650 light years (1 light year = 10 trillion km).

Other ideas: You may mean the biggest known nebula in the whole Universe. Astronomers have just found an enormous nebula near a distant quasar. It is estimated to be about 2 million light years across.

The quasar is called UM 287.

Answer 6

We're not sure what the "oldest" constellations are. Most of the early constellations were named by the ancient Greeks, and it's possible that these names came from earlier Egyptian, Sumerian or Babylonian writings.

There are a few constellations that obviously "look like" the things they're supposed to represent. For example, the constellation Scorpio is very reminiscent of a scorpion, if you've ever seen a scorpion; the Egyptians were very familiar with scorpions. It requires very little imagination to see the constellation Orion as a human figure with a raised club.

Answer 7

"Antares" is probably the largest star visible with the naked eye.

However, the largest star may be "VY Canis Majoris" which is about twice as big as Antares, but is not visible with the naked eye. Estimating the radius of a star is not easy and there are a few other possible answers as to what the biggest star actually is.

See related questions.

Answer 8

Eta Carinae

The Pistol Star

They are so big (at least 100 times the mass of the sun) that they are blowing off their outer layers in their stellar winds - they will also soon (in the next million years or so) explode as supernovae.

I have made links to images of these below.

Answer 9

You can be quite sure that the largest star in the Universe is not known, and that the sizes of the known stars are not known exactly. You can find a list of largest known stars in the Wikipedia article "List of largest known stars" - together with a disclaimer (stating, for example, that the sizes of many of those stars are not known exactly). It is estimated that the largest star is about 1500 times the diameter of the Sun. Oh, and also be sure to distinguish between the star with the largest diameter, and the star with the largest mass.

Answer 10

The largest known star is called VY Canis Majoris. It has an approximate radius of 1356225000km and an approximate diameter of 2712450000km. It also has a mass roughly equivalent to 1 million suns