The infinity of the endless Cosmos amazes the human imagination. The part of the Universe visible from Earth contains only one hundred billion galaxies, each of which contains about one hundred billion stars. It became possible to expand the ranges of reach of the exploration of the Universe due to the use of the latest equipment and technologies of the twenty-first century: numerous spacecraft, automatic interplanetary stations, infrared orbital telescopes, instruments for studying the spectral composition of infrared and gamma radiation of the surface of cosmic bodies, equipment for registering meteoric particles, radars for radar sounding, etc.
The human brain is adapted to the usual surrounding macrocosm: cities, steppes, lakes, mountains, oceans, continents, etc. With the development of nanotechnology, the microworld is becoming familiar to mankind: molecules, atoms, electrons, bacteria, viruses, nanofibers, etc. But it is practically impossible for an ordinary person to imagine a speed of movement in space over one hundred million kilometers per hour or an airless space over a trillion kilometers. Human consciousness cannot even mentally encompass the scale of Outer space.
It is difficult to imagine what volumes and masses of bodies soar in the infinite universe. For example, the mass of Jupiter is two octillion (two times ten to the twenty-seventh power) kilograms. The mass of Jupiter is three hundred times greater than the Earth. But nothing surpasses the gigantic mass of our star. The sun is the largest body in our cosmic system, with a mass a thousand times larger than Jupiter. However, in our galaxy there are huge stars in size and mass much larger than the Sun. The distance to the nearest such star Regulus from the constellation Leo is seventy-seven light years. With its mass, Regulus surpasses our star by three and a half times.
There are also true star titans in the universe. A nearby galaxy called the Large Magellanic Cloud has the most massive star R136A1 in the center of its Tarantula Nebula. It is a relatively young star, about a million years old. Its surface temperature corresponds to forty thousand degrees Celsius, which is seven times hotter than our Sun. The dimensions of this star are two hundred and fifty times the size of our star. But the Sun with a diameter equal to one million four hundred kilometers is one hundred and nine times the Earth and three hundred thousand times the mass of the Earth.
Large bodies with huge masses have problems with gravity, or rather, with its large values. This causes colossal explosions of stars in the Universe. For example, a fragment left after another explosion of a giant supernova is a cosmic body known to science called a Neutron star. This once-existed supernova was incredibly dense and supergiant in size.
Giant star titans from other cosmic galaxies with their size can completely cover our entire solar system. Here are just the names of some giant stars that astronomers gave them: Vega, Bellatrix, Adhara (Epsilon Canis Majoris), Dubhe, Aldebaran, supergiants Betelgeuse and VY Canis Majoris.
The blue, very bright, hot star Vega from the constellation Lyra lies twenty-five light-years from Earth. The giant bright star Bellatrix is located in the right shoulder of the constellation Orion. From it to our planet two hundred and forty light years. The hot blue star Adhara from the constellation Canis Major, located in the southern hemisphere of the starry sky at a distance of four hundred and thirty light-years from us, is larger than Bellatrix. The giant orange star Dubhe is twice the size of the star Adhara and thirty times the size of our Sun. This star belongs to the Red Giants. She sits on the edge of the Dipper's Big Dipper, one hundred and twenty light-years from Earth. And such a stellar titan as Aldebaran from the constellation Taurus is forty-five times larger than our star. The distance from it to Earth is sixty-five light years. The light emanating from the star Aldebaran has an orange tint.
One of the largest stars in our galaxy is Betelgeuse from the constellation Orion. It is six hundred and fifty light-years away. This giant star is a thousand times larger than the Sun, i.e. its radius is the size of Jupiter's orbit. But truly the colossal star of our galaxy, the number one stellar titan is VY. The star titan VY Canis Majoris from the Canis Majoris constellation is already two thousand times larger than our Sun.
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Even within the solar system, the Milky Way galaxy has incredible distances. From the Sun to the planet Mercury, the nearest to it, fifty-four million kilometers. The next planet in the solar system, Venus, is one hundred and eight million kilometers from the Sun. Our planet Earth is the third planet in the solar system located at a distance of one hundred and fifty million kilometers from the central star. The next planet is Mars, located at a distance from the Sun already at a distance of two hundred and thirty million kilometers. Jupiter is located behind it and the distance from the Sun to it is three times farther than to Mars. For further comparison, it is not necessary to list all eight planets of our solar system, it is enough to imagine the most extreme planet in it, Neptune. Its distance from the Sun is four and a half billion kilometers. Because of such an extended orbit around the Sun, one year on Neptune corresponds to one hundred and sixty-five Earth years. Despite such a distance, all the planets of the solar system are held by the powerful gravity of the sun.
However, all these immense spaces of galaxies and the gigantic dimensions of the stellar titans, striking the human imagination, are just grains of sand in the great endless silent Cosmic space.