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One Frickin' Big Star Out There :)

PostPosted: Sat Nov 04, 2006 1:56 am
by Baak
First, in case you didn't have a good idea of how big the Sun (our star) is in comparison to the Earth (the Earth is hiding beneath that massive solar flare in the upper right of the image):

Note: You may have to "zoom" on some browsers to get to 100% image size

Image



Ok - with that in mind, check out this bad boy of a red supergiant star known as VV Cephei A - our Sun is now represented by that little tiny point on the far left:


Image


Dang! :lol:

PostPosted: Sat Nov 04, 2006 8:11 am
by Two Saks
Holy S$$t!!!! That really trips me out for some reason, almost makes me dizzy trying to contemplate.

PostPosted: Sat Nov 04, 2006 8:51 am
by Frumius
Bah, they're not so big.

PostPosted: Sat Nov 04, 2006 1:28 pm
by Baak
Two Saks Wrote:Holy S$$t!!!! That really trips me out for some reason, almost makes me dizzy trying to contemplate.


lol - yes - and the fact that they are spheres makes 'em that much bigger.

I think roughly 1,000,000 Earths fit inside the space of the Sun...


Another odd thing: The supergiant stars are actually much less "dense" and thus even though VV Cephei A is so much bigger around,
it actually is only about 100 times the mass. Funky.

Here's a quip from the Wikipedia entry:

VV Cephei A, the supergiant, is the largest star known. It is of spectral type M2 and is about 1900 times the Sun's diameter.
If it replaced the Sun in our solar system, it would extend to the orbit of Saturn. It is 315,000 times as luminous as the Sun and is 100 solar masses.




Now what gets really wild is stuff on Neutron Stars, Black Holes, and at the other end of the spectrum Galaxies, Galaxy Clusters, etc.

I plan to post some more stuff as I get it all organized. :)

PostPosted: Sun Nov 05, 2006 2:27 pm
by vinylrake
dang I am in the wrong forum again. From the subject I thought this was a review of Streisand's current tour.




ps. I hate to be the bearer of bad news baak, but I don't know if I would trust that first photo of the "sun" - I can't quite put my finger on it and I am no expert, but it looks like someone might photoshopped in that image of "the earth".

PostPosted: Sun Nov 05, 2006 3:58 pm
by Baak
vinylrake Wrote:ps. I hate to be the bearer of bad news baak, but I don't know if I would trust that first photo of the "sun"
- I can't quite put my finger on it and I am no expert, but it looks like someone might photoshopped in that image of "the earth".


Yeah, I think you may be right.

I was trying to figure out where someone would get that 10^12 point font for "Earth" and was really getting suspicious when I realized someone expected
us to believe the words "VV Cephei A" were real when there's no way someone would have enough disk space for a 10^78 point font - even with TrueType
- not to mention trying to stick that label on the star itself.

No frickin' way that adhesive would work.