Wednesday, August 31, 2022

Stephenson 2-18: Not the Largest Star

For those who were wondering why VY Canis Majoris and WOH G64 are treated as the largest stars in my works, and not Stephenson 2-18, this video (kindly by Universe Explorer) quickly shows why Stephenson 2-18 is likely not the largest star in the universe.


UY Scuti's size estimates (1,708 + 192 or 1,516 or 1,900 solar radii in radius) put it above the Hayashi limit of stellar radii (which is ~1,500 solar radii), making its size estimate inaccurate.

Space Explorer prefers a relatively small size estimate for VY Canis Majoris (600 solar radii from Massey et al 2006), and I originally went with this until I was told by an experienced Wikipedia editor, in an email, that the 1,420 solar radii estimate (Wittkowski et al 2012) was more reliable. I calculated the radius using the luminosity and effective temperature estimates given by Wittkowski, and the exact radius figure was 1,421 solar radii—one solar radii above KY Cygni's 1,420 solar radii from the first linked source above. Furthermore, the 600 solar radii radius estimate for VY CMa has been nearly universally rejected by later peer-reviewed academia.

As for RSGC1-F04's 1,422 solar radii, it's still quite tentative and not much is known about that star and its parameters right now, so I'd refrain from calling it the largest known at the moment.
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