Rigel size and scale context

Rigel is the blue-white supergiant that marks Orion’s foot and dominates the constellation’s lower half. Although it looks solitary to the eye, it is actually part of a multiple-star system built around a spectacularly luminous hot primary star. Read its scale context, comparisons, and journey links on the canonical object page.

Sagittarius A*Supermassive black hole·24.5 million km

ArcturusK-type orange giant star·35 million km

AldebaranK-type red giant star·62.8 million km

RigelBlue supergiant star·103 million km

Eta Carinae ALuminous blue variable star·334 million km

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Stars

Aldebaran

Aldebaran is a red giant branch star in Taurus with a cool orange surface and a diameter about 45 times the Sun’s. It lies in front of the Hyades cluster by chance, so it appears to sit among the bull’s-head stars without actually belonging to that group.

Scale fact62.8 million kmdiameter

Object class: K-type red giant star
Mass: ~1.03 solar masses
Host: Aldebaran system
Estimated age: ~6.4 billion years
Composition: Hydrogen and helium
Temperature: ~3,900 K surface

Stars

Rigel

Scale fact103 million kmdiameter

Object class: Blue supergiant star
Mass: ~21 solar masses
Temperature: ~12,000 K surface
Estimated age: ~8 million years
Composition: Hydrogen and helium

Stars

Eta Carinae A

Eta Carinae A is the luminous blue variable primary in the Eta Carinae system, buried inside the Carina Nebula. Its dense wind makes the star’s surface hard to define, so this record uses an approximate visible stellar disk rather than a clean hydrostatic radius.

Scale fact334 million kmdiameter

Object class: Luminous blue variable star
Mass: ~100 solar masses
Host: Eta Carinae system
Estimated age: ~3 million years
Composition: Hydrogen and helium
Temperature: ~15,000–25,000 K surface