He got big ego, such a huge ego...

A dear friend of mine (who is also about to become a year older) found these pictures for me. I'm a visual kind of guy so obvi I love them!

The first couple images are straight forward...






Sirius (a fairly close star) is the brightest star in Earth’s night sky. Pollux is 34 light years away and is the brightest star in the Gemini constellation. Arcturus is the second brightest star visible from the northern hemisphere (3rd brightest overall) and is the brightest in the constilation Boötes.


Rigel is a blue supergiant that is the sixth brightest star in the sky. It is the brightest star in the constellation Orion. Aldebaran is an orange giant star that is the brightest star in the constellation Taurus. It is 65 light years away from us. Now for the big boys…

Betelgeuse is a red supergiant and is one of the biggest stars known to be in existence. It is 640 light years away and is the second brightest (second to Rigel) star in Orion. Based on lots of complex math, Betelgeuse has a diameter estimated to be around 1000 times that of our sun. Betelgeuse is expected to become a supernova (see my past post about stars) within the next 1000 years. When this happens it will be so bright that it when people look up at the night sky from earth, it will be brighter than the moon!

Antares is also a red supergiant that is 600 light years away. It is the brightest star in the constellation Scorpius. This star is HUGE with a diameter of around 1,600 times the size of our sun. If you replaced our sun with Antares, it would eat up the inner planets and have its outer border between Mars and Jupiter.


What’s crazy is that there are almost certainly even bigger stars that we have just never seen!
If that doesn’t make you feel small and humble to the universe, you have an ego problem!

And here is the website the pictures are from, if you're interested: http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/9LspdV/www.rense.com/general72/size.htm