(Update November 2022: Updated the images.)
A popular existing visual by the Huang twins, displaying objects of many sizes from subatomic particles to large galaxies. One can see how small and insignificant we humans are compared to the creation, which is why God made it so large to compel us to bring glory to Him!
(Click for image credits)
But the inner and dwarf planets of our Solar System are not as large as compared to the outer planets. They are made of mostly hydrogen and helium gas, rather than rock. Thus they are called gas giants or even failed stars, because all stars are mostly made out of hydrogen or helium.
Here are Earth, Venus, Mars, Mercury, and Eris compared to Neptune (diameter 49,244 km), Uranus (50,724 km), Saturn (116,464 km), and Jupiter (139,822 km), the largest planet of our Solar System. Neptune and Uranus are also classified as "ice giants" because they have high amounts of ammonia and water in their composition along with the typical hydrogen and helium. (Click for image credits)
But the planets are not even the size of the Sun. The Sun is 332,900 times more massive than the Earth, and has a diameter of 1,392,400 kilometers. It accounts for over 99.9% of the Solar System's mass:
Quite impressive, but there's more...
Here is Jupiter (a tiny dot) and the Sun compared to much larger stars!
- Merak is a white main sequence star, around 3 times the diameter of the Sun (4.2 million kilometers). It is located nearly 80 light years away from Earth in the Ursa Major constellation. (1 light year is the distance light travels in a vacuum within a year, or 9.47 trillion kilometers.)
- Pollux is an orange giant star more than nine times wider than the Sun. It is 34 light years away from the Sun.
- Arcturus is the brightest star in the northern hemisphere (Sirius A is in the southern hemisphere). It is a massive, old red giant star 37 light years away.
As a rule of thumb, remember that red stars, no matter their size, are cooler in temperature than blue stars.
But Arcturus pales in size to Rigel (78.9 sun diameters), S Doradus (100 solar diameters), Antares (680 sun diameters; varies by 15%), and Betelgeuse (1,021 sun diameters):
Although they're very big, Betelgeuse and Antares, both red supergiants, are not as luminous as stars which are smaller than them: hypergiants. Below is the blue (not red; another mistake) hypergiant Pistol Star compared to the much larger red hypergiants KW Sagittarii, V354 Cephei, and VY Canis Majoris - a likely candidate for the largest star known in the Milky Way (but not the universe).
Image under fair use.
VY Canis Majoris lies nearly 3,900 light years away and is believed to be around 1,420 times the Sun's diameter. If this star took the place of the Sun, its outer surface would extend past the orbit of Jupiter!
The star would fit over two billion Suns into its volume, but it is not as dense as our own Sun, or even the air we breathe! VY Canis Majoris is only 40 times the mass ("heavier") of our own Sun, despite its large size. It is over a thousand times less "thick" (dense) than the Earth's atmosphere.
But being such a large star, VY Canis Majoris is expected to end its life in a hypernova explosion 100,000 years from now, if God willing. If it does, its core will become much denser, and its atoms will be compressed to a point that it will become so dense. In turn, its gravity will become so strong that its escape velocity - the speed required to break free of its gravity–will exceed the speed of light (299,792.458 kilometers per second), the fastest possible speed in the universe–that nothing can escape it. Because it can swallow up its own light, the core of VY Canis Majoris will become a black hole - with a diameter of only 30 kilometers. The star's outer limits will be pushed off into space, causing the massive hypernova explosion but in turn becoming the material to form new stars.
Why do we continue to trust ourselves when the Creator can do anything? Isaiah rightfully instructed us (2:22) to "stop trusting in man"!
All Glory to God!
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