The largest celestial body in the universe!

The universe impresses us not only with its vastness but also with celestial bodies so large that they take our breath away.

The Universe

The Earth is the home of human beings in the universe. Scientific knowledge now tells us that the Earth is a planet in the universe. But can we who live on Earth feel that the Earth is a sphere? We can hardly feel that the Earth is a sphere. The reason for this is that the Earth is too big. The Earth has a diameter of 12,756 km and an equatorial circumference of about 40,000 km. It is difficult for us to perceive it as a sphere on Earth.

Blue marbles

If we leave the Earth and look at it from a distance from space we will see the shape of the Earth's sphere. For example, this classic photograph of the Earth, the Blue Marble, was taken by the Apollo 17 astronauts at a distance of 45,000 kilometers from Earth. It is only at such a distance from the Earth that the full face of the Earth can be seen in its entirety. You can see how huge the Earth is!

The Earth seems big to us, but compared to many celestial bodies in the universe, the Earth is very small. There are eight large planets in our solar system, and four of them are many times larger than Earth. Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system, with a mass 318 times that of Earth, a diameter 11 times that of Earth, and a volume more than 1300 times that of Earth. In front of Jupiter, the Earth is like a glass marble placed in front of a basketball.

Jupiter and the Earth

But even Jupiter is instantly smaller than the Sun, the largest object in our solar system. It is about 1,000 times the mass and volume of Jupiter. The Sun is even more than 330,000 times the mass and 1.3 million times the volume of the Earth.

The Sun is a star. Astronomers call stars with masses between 0.8 and 1.2 solar masses yellow dwarfs. The word "dwarf" in its name means that the Sun is not the most massive of the entire stellar family. So who is the most massive star? The most massive star known is R136a1, which is located 163,000 light-years from Earth in the Large Magellanic System. The mass of this star is 215 solar masses and its diameter is 39.2 times that of the Sun or 54.57 million kilometers.

R136a1 and the Sun

This is the most massive star known but not the most massive star known. There is a very famous star in the list of massive stars. It has long been thought to be the most massive star known. This star is UY in the constellation of the shield.

How big is UY in the constellation of the shield? Its radius is 1708 times that of the Sun. This means that the radius of UY Shield reaches 1,188 million kilometers. If Shield UY were placed in the position of the Sun in the solar system, its radius would exceed the orbit of Jupiter to reach near the orbit of Saturn. It is so big that it could fit 5 billion suns. The Sun would be like dust in front of it.

UY Shield and the Solar System

However, UY is only 7 to 10 times the mass of the Sun. Shield UY is just an over-inflated fat man, and it is very vain. There is another mysterious class of objects in the Universe that are so massive that we cannot imagine them. The most massive among them is probably the most massive in the entire visible universe. These objects are black holes.

Black holes evolved from massive stars. Like us, human stars age slowly as they go through their young adulthood. An aging star uses up all the fuel inside the star. The old star does not have enough power to support the weight of the stellar shell. This causes the material in the star's shell to fall rapidly toward the center of the star and a supernova explosion occurs

Supernova explosions

The material at the center of the star is compressed to a great extent and eventually forms objects of near-infinite volume and infinite density. The distortion of space-time caused by the mass of these objects makes it impossible for light to escape, and black holes are created.

Then the question arises since black holes are the evolution of stars, then the mass of the black hole should not be greater than the mass of the star is ah! It turns out that a black hole is a very scary monster in the universe. It will swallow all the surrounding matter by way of accretion to continuously grow its mass. It is a master of killing people and killing Buddha.

Black Holes

In 2018, scientists discovered a 20 billion solar mass black hole 12 billion light-years from Earth. Scientists named it Brock's Black Hole. It can devour the equivalent of one solar mass in an average of two days. That's pretty scary.

The black hole called Brock is 20 billion times more massive than the Sun, but it is not the most massive black hole known. The most massive black hole known is located inside the quasar TON 618. It is about 10.4 billion light-years from Earth. Its mass is 66 billion times that of the Sun.

Quasars

What is the concept of 66 billion solar masses? Don't compare it to stars like UY in Shield and R136a1. They are dust in front of TON618, which has a mass comparable to that of a galaxy. The mass of the Milky Way is 20,000 billion solar masses. The mass of the black hole TON 618 is 3.3% of the mass of the Milky Way. You know that the Milky Way is a huge galaxy of 100 to 400 billion stars, with a diameter of 200,000 light years.

Black Holes

The Milky Way is surrounded by two satellite galaxies, one of which is called the Large Magellanic Galaxy. The mass of the Large Magellanic Galaxy is about 10 billion solar masses. TON618 is 6.6 times the mass of the Large Magellanic Galaxy. The Triangulum Galaxy is a spiral galaxy near the Milky Way that contains about 40 billion stars. It has a mass of 50 billion solar masses. It is still not as massive as TON 618.

The Triangulum Galaxy

Scientists have observed that there is also a supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. TON618 is 16,500 times more massive than it. Imagine if a black hole as big as TON618 was at the center of the galaxy, would the whole galaxy be swallowed by it?