The Sun is HUGE!

[Ags]

With all the tales of monster stars like Antares which would stretch out to the orbit of Mars, it's easy to forget how big our own Sun is.

For example, if you put the Earth at the center of the Sun, the Moon would only be halfway out to the surface of the star!

[Telrad]

This is a good comparative planetary/stellar size guide. Certainly puts it into perspective..

[Sam]

The scale is quite amazing and when you compare the massive size of the sun with the larger stars it's just mind boggling.

[Telrad]

I bet there are stars bigger than Antares and even VY Canis Majoris out there!

[Charon]

I like the pics Telrad, thanks for sharing.

[MjrTom]

The visual representation really shows the huge variation in star sizes

[Duns]

Brilliant illustration Telrad - boy we really are pretty insignificant in the grand scale of things

[Stephen]

I always liked this one

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4138/4820647230_faba1c9f3b_o.jpg

(Edit) Changed it to a link, the image was bigger than I remembered!

[Telrad]

I always liked this one

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4138/4820647230_faba1c9f3b_o.jpg

(Edit) Changed it to a link, the image was bigger than I remembered!

That's a big image, but not as big as the stars Thanks Kh3ldar!

[spaceboy]

Better slap on the factor 1000,000 if your any where near VY Canis Major!!

I wonder depending on how close you could get near to such a big star if it would still fill the sky for as far as you could see. Or is it that these massive stars would still resemble the same size as our own star. I'm assuming we are a "perfect distance away from our sun and this is why life was able to evolve on Earth. So I'm guessing the same distance vs size of star would in fact offer the same perspective as we see with our own Sun. Dam this is hard to put into words. Do any of you get what I mean ? I'm thinking all stars radiate the same amount of heat in comparison to their size so it would be to the same scale only bigger distances involved so in truth perspectives would appear the same.

[haitch]

Try this... Star Size Comparison HD - YouTube

[Ags]

No, I think a cool red star would be larger in the sky of a goldilocks zone planet, while a hot blue star would be smaller. In terms of angular size not absolute size of course. A star that puts out one quarter of the sun's energy per square meter would have to be twice the angular size in the sky to give the same warmth.

[spaceboy]

Thanks Ags.

[ZEbbEDY]

this is a good one too

http://uploads.ungrounded.net/525000/525347_scale_of_universe_ng.swf

[Virtual Cold]

If there was ever a reason to not sunbathe...

[Ags]

C'mon! I started this thread so we could appreciate how huge the sun is - not to compare it unfavorably with some bloated half-dead has-beens of the sky!

[mindburner]

just imagine the view when (after) Betelgeuse goes off (of course it maybe already has)

[umadog]

This one's nice too, because it shows you all of those things in one compact graphic: File:Star-sizes.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia