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Below are lists of the largest stars currently known, ordered by radius and separated into categories by galaxy. The unit of measurement used is the radius of the Sun (approximately 695,700 km ; 432,300 mi ).
Stars of greater mass have a higher rate of core energy generation, and heavier stars' luminosities increase far out of proportion to the increase in their masses. The Eddington limit is the point beyond which a star ought to push itself apart, or at least shed enough mass to reduce its internal energy generation to a lower, maintainable rate.
UY Scuti was analyzed to be the largest and the most luminous of the three stars measured, at 1,708 ± 192 R ☉ (1.188 × 10 9 ± 134,000,000 km; 7.94 ± 0.89 AU) based on an angular diameter of 5.48 ± 0.10 mas and an assumed distance of 2.9 ± 0.317 kiloparsecs (kpc) (about 9,500 ± 1,030 light-years) which was originally derived in 1970 ...
VY Canis Majoris (abbreviated to VY CMa) is an extreme oxygen-rich red hypergiant or red supergiant (O-rich RHG or RSG) and pulsating variable star 1.2 kiloparsecs (3,900 light-years) from the Solar System in the slightly southern constellation of Canis Major.
Mass loss is largest for high-luminosity stars with low surface gravity and enhanced levels of heavy elements in the photosphere. R136a1 loses 1.6 × 10 −4 M ☉ (3.21 × 10 18 kg/s) per year, over a billion times more than the Sun loses, and is expected to have shed about 35 M ☉ since its formation. [4]
WOH G64 (IRAS 04553-6825) is a symbiotic binary in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), roughly 160,000 light-years from Earth. The main component of this system was once recognized as the best candidate for the largest known star when it was a red supergiant, [7] until it gradually became a yellow hypergiant with half of its original size and 34% of its luminosity.
Some appeared in the year's biggest films and television shows, including "Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One," "The Last of Us," "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3," and "The Mandalorian."
Below is a list of the largest known star clusters, ordered by diameter in light years, above the size of 50 light years in diameter. This list includes globular clusters , open clusters , super star clusters , and other types.