Ancient pyramids, the world's tallest skyscraper in Dubai, almost half a kilometer high, the grandiose Everest - at one glance at these huge objects will take your breath away. And at the same time, in comparison with some objects in the universe, they differ in microscopic size
Largest asteroid
To date, Ceres is considered the largest asteroid in the universe: its mass is almost a third of the entire mass of the asteroid belt, and its diameter is over 1000 kilometers. The asteroid is so large that it is sometimes called a "dwarf planet."
Largest planet
In the photo: on the left - Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system, on the right - TRES4
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In the constellation Hercules is the planet TRES4, which is 70% larger than Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system. But the mass of TRES4 is inferior to the mass of Jupiter. This is due to the fact that the planet is very close to the Sun and is formed by gases constantly heated by the Sun. As a result, this celestial body resembles a kind of marshmallow in density.
The biggest star
In 2013, astronomers discovered KY Cygnus, the largest star in the universe to date; the radius of this red supergiant is 1,650 times the radius of the Sun.
The largest black hole
In terms of area, black holes are not that big. However, when you consider their mass, these objects are the largest in the universe. And the largest black hole in space is a quasar, the mass of which is 17 billion times (!) Greater than the mass of the Sun. It is a huge black hole in the very center of the galaxy NGC 1277, an object larger than the entire solar system - its mass is 14% of the total mass of the entire galaxy.
The largest galaxy
The so-called "super galaxies" are several galaxies fused together and located in galactic "clusters", clusters of galaxies. The largest of these "super galaxies" is IC1101, which is 60 times larger than the galaxy where our solar system is located. IC1101 is 6 million light-years across. By comparison, the Milky Way is only 100,000 light-years across.
Shapley Supercluster
The Shapley Supercluster is a collection of galaxies over 400 million light years across. The Milky Way is about 4,000 times smaller than this super galaxy. The Shapley Supercluster is so large that it would take trillions of years for the fastest spacecraft on Earth to cross it.
Huge-LQG quasar group
A huge group of quasars was discovered in January 2013 and is today considered the largest structure in the entire universe. The Huge-LQG is a collection of 73 quasars so large that it would take over 4 billion years to cross from end to end at the speed of light. The mass of this massive space object is approximately 3 million times the mass of the Milky Way. The Huge-LQG group of quasars is so grand that its existence disproves Einstein's basic cosmological principle. According to this cosmological position, the universe always looks the same, no matter where the observer is.
Space network
Not so long ago, astronomers managed to discover something completely amazing - a cosmic network formed by clusters of galaxies surrounded by dark matter, and resembling a giant three-dimensional spider web. How big is this interstellar network? If the Milky Way galaxy were an ordinary seed, then this cosmic network would be like a huge stadium in size.