Of all known stars, the VY Canis Majoris is the largest. This red Hypergiant star, found in the constellation Canis Major,
is estimated to have a radius at least 1,800 that of the Sun’s. In
astronomy-speak we use the term 1,800 solar radii to refer to this
particular size. Although not the most luminous among all known stars,
it still ranks among the top 50.
Hypergiants are the most massive and luminous of stars. As such, they
emit energy at a very fast rate. Thus, hypergiants only last for a few
million years. Compare that to the Sun and similar stars that can keep
on burning up to 10 billion years. VY Canis Majoris
a.k.a. VY CMa is about 4,900 light years from the Earth. This value,
however, is just a rough estimate because it is too far for parallax to
be used. Parallax is the most common method for measuring star
distances. It is actually a special kind of triangulation method, i.e.,
similar to the one employed by engineers that make use of angles and a
fixed baseline.
If you still can't image how big VY Canis Majoris is, please watch this:
Of all known stars, the VY Canis Majoris is the largest. This red Hypergiant star, found in the constellation Canis Major,
is estimated to have a radius at least 1,800 that of the Sun’s. In
astronomy-speak we use the term 1,800 solar radii to refer to this
particular size. Although not the most luminous among all known stars,
it still ranks among the top 50.
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