Scaling things down to size

[DR]

Here is another non video graphic that really shows the gigantic scale of the largest stars yet discovered. You may want to save this pic so you can see the whole thing at once.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/Star-sizes.jpg

[DR]

The largest star radius known is VY Canis Majoris.
If the Sun were replaced by VY Canis Majoris, its radius might extend beyond the orbit of Saturn. Light would take more than 2.7 hours to travel around the star's circumference, compared to 14.5 seconds for the Sun, and 7 times in one second for the Earth. It would take 7 Trillion Earths to fill the volume of VY Canis Majoris.

If the Earth were to be represented by a sphere 1/3 of an inch in diameter, the Sun would be represented as a sphere with a diameter of 3½ ft. At these scales, VY Canis Majoris would have a diameter of approximately 1.43 mi.



Cited in part from Wikipedia.

[DR]

Here is a scale for ya.

The national debt is 14.2 trillion dollars. If each of those dollars represented 1 second of time the debt would represent well over 425,000 years.

US debt clock

[TOvA~]

So interesting Doc. Especially the debt thing....WOW!

[DR]

I agree. scaling is the only way you can wrap your mind around such LARGE things.

[TOvA~]

It is super helpful, I think!
Thanks for taking the time to explain these big things to my small brain...lol

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