Size of the Planets, A Comparison

[Perfection]

uhhh, isn't Neptune bigger than Saturn?

Nope, Neptune is the smallest of the gas giants (by volume).

Edit: Drats! Beaten to the punch!

 

[The Last Conformist]

Isn't the sun an average size star in terms of stars?

The Sun is actually larger than most stars. The giants that vastly outsize it are a tiny proportion of all stars (but a large proportion of the stars you see in the night sky, because they are fantastically bright, and can be seen across much larger distances than smaller stars).

 

[Bluemofia]

The rival of Mars ownz Mars. By like a factor of 1,000,000.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Liberal propaganda...
Proportions are good.

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

The big stars are supernovas.
It's part of the life cycle of a star (the end of it).

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

NOt supernovae , but Red Giants. That's what our Sun will do, it will swell up so large that it engulfs the four inner planets (that's us), and then shrink down to a white dwarf. NO spectacular ending for our star.
Supernovae are even bigger than these guys, and then they go boom! and shrink to a point the size of the US.

 

[CaptainF]

Gotta love feeling tiny.

Antares is definetly Gods' bowling ball of choice.

 

[Kan' Sharuminar]

Gotta love feeling tiny.

Antares is definetly Gods' bowling ball of choice.

Pfft, in that case he's overcompensating for something

 

[Perfection]

Indeed, God's bowling ball is actual buckminsterfullerine.

 

[Pontiuth Pilate]

The pictures are actually a bit misleading.

Antares is huge but very light. For all the space it takes up it has only 15 times the mass of the Sun.

Moreover to give you another idea of scale, all of Antares would fit in the space between the surface of the sun and Jupiter's orbit.

 

[Bluemofia]

Moreover to give you another idea of scale, all of Antares would fit in the space between the surface of the sun and Jupiter's orbit.

That's still a lot.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

hey come check out my thread where we decide about planets or not!

What Constitutes a Planet?

 

[North King]

Aren't Luminous Blue Variables bigger than Antares? Well, I'm certain they're much more massive, but what about volume-wise?

 

[Perfection]

Aren't Luminous Blue Variables bigger than Antares? Well, I'm certain they're much more massive, but what about volume-wise?

Nah, they're pretty compact in comparison. All in one neat package. (except of course the nebula of ejecta they spew out)

 

[The Last Conformist]

According to WikiPedia, KY Cygni has a radius more than twice that of Antares, and more than ten times the volume.

 

[Kan' Sharuminar]

According to WikiPedia, KY Cygni has a radius more than twice that of Antares, and more than ten times the volume.

Is that the largest star known?

 

[The Last Conformist]

Is that the largest star known?

It's one of a number of stars that seem to be at about the maximum size for red supergiants, the biggest kind of stars.

 

[bed_head7]

Is that the largest star known?

I did some quick searching, and it appears, as I should have guessed before, that there is some degree of uncertainty over what star has the largest volume. Mu Cephei, KW Sagitarii, V354 Cephei, and VV Cephei all seem to be in the race for largest, but I could not get a source to list one as the biggest.

 

[Kan' Sharuminar]

It's one of a number of stars that seem to be at about the maximum size for red supergiants, the biggest kind of stars.

Pretty neat.

What are the other 'biggest things in the universe' that we know of, out of interest?

 

[The Last Conformist]

Pretty neat.

What are the other 'biggest things in the universe' that we know of, out of interest?

Well, I suppose there's got to be a biggest known galaxy, a biggest known galactic cluster, a brightest known quasar, but I'm too lazy to look 'em up.

 

[Kan' Sharuminar]

Well, I suppose there's got to be a biggest known galaxy, a biggest known galactic cluster, a brightest known quasar, but I'm too lazy to look 'em up.

So am I, which is why I asked you