How big compared to the sun is the biggest known star?

Question: How big compared to the sun is the biggest known star?

Asked by exclaiimzo to Laura, Lily, Mark, Paul, Sarah on 23 Jun 2010 in Categories: General.
- Paul Roche answered on 22 Jun 2010:
  
  The biggest that we think we have reliably measured would fill our Solar system out to about the orbit of Saturn – so maybe a thousand times the diameter of the Sun (which is ~1.2 million km).
  
  The most massive stars are not necessarily the largest in diameter – that huge one I mentioned above probably only weighs 30 times as much as the Sun – but we think that stars cannot now exist which are more than maybe 200 times the mass of the Sun. The very first stars, right after the Big Bang, might have been able to be 300-400 times as massive at the Sun….
- Lily Asquith answered on 22 Jun 2010:
  
  There are some giant stars out there that are as big as 1000 suns
- Mark Roberts answered on 22 Jun 2010:
  
  Alas I’m a biochemist not an astronomer so Paul probably has a better answer – but from what I know roughly 1000 times the size of the sun
- Sarah Bardsley answered on 23 Jun 2010:
  
  According to the research I just did (ok, ok I cheated!) its “VY Canis Majoris; a red hypergiant star in the constellation Canis Major, located about 5,000 light-years from Earth. University of Minnesota professor Roberta Humphreys recently calculated its upper size at more than 2,100 times the size of the Sun”.
  http://www.universetoday.com/2008/04/06/what-is-the-biggest-star-in-the-universe/

Comments

tasniauddin commented on 23 Jun 2010:

That’s Cool!
But Is It True That Millions After Millions Of Miles Away From The Sun, There Is Another Star That Is Much More Bigger Than The Sun?

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Question: How big compared to the sun is the biggest known star?