7. VY Big Dog (VY CMa)
The largest star in the universe (3 billion kilometers in diameter)
The star VY Big Dog (VY Canis Majoris) is the largest and also one of the brightest stars currently known. It is a red hypergiant in the constellation Big Dog. Its radius is 1,800-2,200 times that of the Sun, and its diameter is 3 billion kilometers. If placed in our solar system, its surface would extend beyond the orbit of Saturn. Some astronomers disagree with this statement and believe that the Big Dog star VY is actually much smaller, only 600 times larger than the Sun, and would only stretch as far as the orbit of Mars.
6. Largest amount of water in the universe
Astronomers have discovered the largest and oldest mass of water ever found in the universe. A giant cloud 12 billion years old carries 140 trillion times more water than all of Earth's oceans combined. The cloud of water vapor surrounds a supermassive black hole called Quasar, located 12 billion light years from Earth. According to scientists, this discovery proved that water has dominated the universe throughout its existence.
5. Extremely Large Supermassive Black Holes
A supermassive black hole is the largest type of black hole in the galaxy, ranging in size from hundreds of thousands to billions of solar masses. Most, if not all, galaxies, including the Milky Way, are thought to contain a supermassive black hole at their center. One of these recently discovered monsters, weighing 21 billion times the mass of the Sun, is a swirl of egg-shaped stars. It is known as NGC 4889, the brightest galaxy in a sprawling cloud of thousands of galaxies. This cloud is 336 million light-years from the constellation Coma Berenices. This black hole is so big that our entire solar system would fit there about a dozen times.
4. Milky Way.
100,000-120,000 light years in diameter
The Milky Way is a closed spiral galaxy with a diameter of 100,000-120,000 light years and containing 200-400 billion stars. It may contain at least that many planets, 10 billion of which may orbit in the habitable zone of their parent stars.
3. El Gordo "El Gordo".
The largest galactic cluster (2×1015 solar mass)
El Gordo is located more than 7 billion light years from Earth. According to scientists involved in the study, this cluster of galaxies is the most massive, hottest and emits more X-rays than any other known cluster at this distance or even further.
The central galaxy in the middle of El Gordo is unusually bright and has amazing blue rays in the optical wavelengths. The authors believe that this extreme galaxy was formed by the collision and merger of two galaxies in the center of each cluster.
Using data from the Spitzer Space Telescope (Spitzer) and optical images, it was calculated that about 1% of the entire mass of the cluster occupied by stars, while the rest - the hot gas that fills the spaces between the stars and discernible with the Chandra telescope (Chandra). Such a ratio of gas to stars is consistent with the results obtained from other massive clusters.
2. Universe
Estimated size - 156 billion light years
Earth 1.27×104 km
Sun 1.39×106 km
Solar system 2.99×1010 km or 0.0032 light years
Solar interstellar space 6.17×1014 km or 65 light years
The Milky Way 1.51×1018 km or 160,.00 light years
Local Group of Galaxies 3.1×1019 km or 6.5 million light years
Local Supercluster 1.2×1021 km or 130 million light years
Universe 1.5×1024 km or 156 billion light years (but no one knows for sure)
1. Multiverse
Imagine not one but many universes existing at the same time. A multiverse (or meta-universe) is a hypothetical set of many possible universes (including the historical universe in which we exist). Together they form everything that exists and can exist: the generality of space, time, matter and energy, as well as the physical laws and constants that describe them. But, again, there is no evidence for the existence of a multiverse, so it may well be that our universe is the largest.
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