The biggest star in universe: UY SCUTI

 

Looking to the sky at night, watching billions of stars make us feel amazed and also make us think that how small we are. Are you guys ever thinking what is the biggest star in the universe? do you think that sun is the biggest star in the universe? then you're wrong! so what is the biggest star in the universe? the answer is Uy Scuti.

Uy Scuti is the biggest star in the universe that has been discovered. It's red, it's one of the most luminous stars of its kind, and leading candidate to be the biggest known stars since it discovered in 1860 by German astronomers. 

Before Uy Scuti discovered, the biggest star was Westerlund 1 BKS AS. Westerlund 1 BKS AS was beating the biggest star before, that is NML Cygni that was beating VY Canis Majoris. 

Uy Scuti has an estimated radius of 1,708 solar radii, if it is converted to mil it can be 1,054,378,000 – 1,321,450,000 and what if in kilometers? I can't imagine that! it's so big, right? crazy! with that size, Uy Scuti also has an amazing mass. The Astronomers actually have not been able to confirm the mass but if it compared with our sun, the mass of Uy Scuti is about 21 billion heavier than the sun. If Uy Scuti is compared to earth the diameter of Uy Scuti equals to 186,172 times the radius of the Earth and the volume is 6,500,000,000,000,000 times the volume of earth.

If Uy Scuti is placed in our solar system, it will swallow all the planets up to Jupiter or even Saturn. Not only that, but the UY Scuti’s gravity would gobble up the larger planet and distant planetoids of our solar system like an interstellar Pac-Man, and whatever remained unconsumed would take thousands of years to complete a single orbital rotation around the luminescent giant.

In general, the Earth and Uy Scuti are in the same galaxy that is Milky Way but Uy Scuti is in the different constellation with us and it's so far away. So, how far is it? the distance is about 2,9 kiloparsec or 9,500 light years. Uy Scuti is in the Avoidance-zone, the zone in the Milky way where cosmic dust appear that blocking the light so it's quite difficult to observe it.