Star size

[cjsmith]

This video of star sizes in scale is mindbending.

Me: "Wow. ... Whoa."
Rob: "It's the Total Perspective Vortex."

Betelgeuse is large enough and close enough that Hubble has taken a photo of it and resolved it as more than a point source.

(Those last ones in the video are no longer the largest known stars. VY Canis Majoris is now the largest known star, a red hypergiant over two light-hours in diameter. Size comparison image on this blog.)

Comments

[quasigeostrophy.livejournal.com]

Nifty. Have you ever seen "Powers of Ten"? It's also up on YouTube. I was fascinated by that one as a kid, too.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Yes, that one's great! And I love that I can get equally gleeful about how our cells eat glucose as about how big stars are.