The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System and the source of almost all the energy reaching its planets. It fuses about 600 million metric tons of hydrogen each second, and energy released in the core takes on the order of 100,000 years to work its way out to the visible surface.
Scale Comparison
Sun vs Betelgeuse
Explore the scaleBetelgeuse's quoted photospheric diameter is about 755 times the Sun's.
Betelgeuse is a red supergiant with an approximate photospheric diameter hundreds of times the Sun’s.
Betelgeuse has no solid edge: its measured diameter changes with wavelength and as its extended atmosphere pulsates. The value here is an approximate photospheric size, not a permanently fixed boundary.
Objects
Object details and sources
Betelgeuse is a red supergiant nearing the end of its stellar life. Its dramatic dimming in 2019 and 2020 turned out to be caused by a dusty veil ejected from the star, giving astronomers a rare direct look at how giant stars shed material into space.
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About
Scale of Space is a scroll-based journey through the universe, placing objects on a single logarithmic scale so you can compare size across an unbroken range.
Guides explain selected parts of that range, while focused views filter the objects by subject.