The sun is about 110 times larger than the Earth. It is even larger than the giant of our system - Jupiter. However, if we compare it with other stars in the Universe, our star will take a place in the nursery school, this is how small it is.
Now let's imagine a star that is 1500 times larger than our Sun. Even if we take the entire solar system, it will be a point against the background of this star. This giant is called VY Big Dog, whose diameter is about 3 billion km. How and why this star was blown to such dimensions, no one knows.
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Hypergiant VY Canis Major is 5,000 light years away. In 2005, the diameter of the star was determined to be approximately 1800 to 2100 solar radii, that is, 2.5 to 2.9 billion kilometers in diameter. If this hypergiant from the constellation Canis Major is placed in the center of the solar system, that is, instead of the sun, then the star will occupy all space up to Saturn!
Even if you fly at the speed of light, you can fly around a star in only 8 hours, and at supersonic speed, that is, 4500 km / h, it will take 230 years.
It is interesting that with such a supergiant size, the star does not weigh so much, only about 30-40 solar masses. This suggests that the density in the interior of the star is very low. If we calculate the weight and size, then the density is about 0.000005, that is, one cubic kilometer of a star will weigh about 5-10 tons.
There is endless controversy about the VY Star Big Dog. According to one version, this star is a large red hypergiant, according to another, it is a supergiant, which has a diameter of 600 times the Sun, and not, as is customary, 2000 times.
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The VY Star Canis Major, as studies have shown, is rather unstable. Astronomers have studied the star with the Hubble Telescope and predicted that the star will explode in the next 100 thousand years. In the explosion, there will be a burst of gamma radiation that will destroy all life within a radius of several light years. This radiation does not threaten us with anything, because the hypergiant is too far from the Earth.