VY Canis Majoris; The largest known star

It is the largest known star in the Universe and due t its large size it is one of the most brightest stars in the Universe. It is abbreviated as VY CMa.

It is located in the constellation Canis Majoris. Canis Majoris is from Latin, meaning “Greater Dog” and contains one of the brightest stars in the night namely “Sirius”.

VY CMa is about 3.063 billion km in diameter whereas the diameter of sun is about 1,392,000 km and the diameter of earth is about 12742 km. (Check there five digits in the diameter of Earth, seven digits in the diameter of Sun and ten digits in the diameter of VY CMa.) It is estimated that if our sun is replaced by VY CMa than it may extend out towards the orbit of the 6^th planet of the solar system i.e. Saturn.

VY CMa is about 4900 lights years away from earth i.e. about 4.6 x 10¹⁶ km.

VY CMa is about 30-40 times heavier than sun.

The temperature of VY CMa is about 3000 K which is approximately half of the sun i.e. 5778 K.