Scale Comparison
Pollux is an orange giant about nine times the Sun’s diameter.
Pollux expanded after exhausting hydrogen in its core. A giant planet still orbits it, showing that planetary systems can persist after a star leaves the main sequence.
Objects
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.
Pollux is the brightest star in Gemini and the nearest giant star to the Sun. It has already left the main sequence and swelled into an orange giant, making it a useful nearby preview of what a Sun-like star looks like after exhausting core hydrogen.
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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.