61 Cygni A size and scale context

61 Cygni A is a nearby orange dwarf star in one of the sky’s most famous binary systems. The 61 Cygni pair became the first stellar system with a measured parallax, and 61 Cygni A is also a standard reference star for the K5 V spectral class. Read its scale context, comparisons, and journey links on the canonical object page.

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Between the smallest and the largest, perspective is everything.

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 turn parts of that scale into curated essays, while focused views let you explore the same range through specific groups of objects.

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Planets of the Solar System Stars of the Universe Black holes Subatomic scale

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Between the smallest and the largest, perspective is everything.

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 turn parts of that scale into curated essays, while focused views let you explore the same range through specific groups of objects.

Editorial

Solar System Planets From Electron to Atoms Stars To Scale Birth And Death Of Stars Black Holes To Scale

Views

Planets of the Solar System Stars of the Universe Black holes Subatomic scale

Return to Earth hello@scaleofspace.org

Planets

Jupiter

Jupiter is the largest planet in the Solar System. It is more massive than all the other planets combined and still spins once in only about 10 hours, giving the giant world the shortest day in the planetary family.

Scale fact140,000 kmdiameter

Object class: Gas giant planet
Mass: ~318 Earth masses
Host: Sun
Estimated age: ~4.5 billion years
Composition: Hydrogen and helium
Temperature: ~110 K cloud tops

Stars

61 Cygni A

Scale fact925,000 kmdiameter

Object class: K-type main-sequence star
Mass: ~0.70 solar masses
Temperature: ~4,545 K surface
Estimated age: ~6 billion years
Composition: Hydrogen and helium

Stars

Sun

The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System and the engine behind every climate and orbit within it. It fuses about 600 million metric tons of hydrogen each second, while photons created in the core can take roughly 250,000 years to work their way to the visible surface.

Scale fact1.39 million kmdiameter

Object class: G-type main-sequence star
Mass: ~333,000 Earth masses
Temperature: 5,772 K surface
Estimated age: ~4.6 billion years
Composition: Hydrogen and helium