The Biggest Known Star
"The biggest star is VY Canis Majoris, a red hypergiant 5000 light years from the Solar System. It has been estimated at around 2000 times the radius of the Sun, but only around 30 times more massive. Since it’s very difficult to imagine something that size, I’d recommend watching this animation that compares the Solar System planets to the Sun, and then these much bigger stars such as Pollux, Betelgeuse and VY Canis Majoris"
1 light year is the distance light will travel in 1 year. Light travels at 186,000 miles per second. The fastest rocket ship at this time only travels at 30,000 miles per hour. So if we suddenly found a way to travel at the speed of light, it would take us 5,000 years to reach VY Canis Majoris. Of course we would be incinerated long before we reached the star but just to provide some perspective.....
Please allow the page a few seconds to load animation. It's worth the wait because it will show how very very small we really are.......
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