• Question: How big is the biggest star in the whole universe?

    Asked by to Mark, Matthew, Mike, Paul, Sabina on 18 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Matthew Malek

      Matthew Malek answered on 18 Mar 2014:

      The largest known star has the catchy name of “UY Scuti”. Its volume is about FIVE BILLION times that of the Sun. Pretty big, huh?

      UY Scuti is about 1000 light years away from Earth. That’s a good thing. If it were at sitting at the centre of our solar system, it would extend more than halfway to Saturn, consuming all the planets up and (and including) Jupiter!

      The runner up star has a similiarly attactive name: “NML Cygni”, which has a volume of about four and a half billion times that of the Sun.

    • Photo: Paul Coxon

      Paul Coxon answered on 18 Mar 2014:

      Madonna was quite a big star in her day, but now I think Lady Gaga is the biggest 🙂

      Haha, but seriously the biggest known star in the universe is UY Scuti, it’s about 5 billion times larger than the sun, which is so stupendously large I can’t even imagine it.

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

      Makes you think how small and insignificant Earth is.

    • Photo: Mike Lee

      Mike Lee answered on 19 Mar 2014:

      5 billion times bigger than the sun is so large that it made my office mate say: “WHAT?”

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