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Massive Stars and their approximate Size

Astronomers have found massive stars in the early universe, primarily located in distant galaxies that formed shortly after the Big Bang. These regions are often studied through advanced telescopes capable of observing very distant light, such as the Hubble Space Telescope and the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope. In terms of size, these monster stars can have diameters ranging from about 100 to over 300 times that of our Sun. The Sun’s diameter is approximately 1.4 million kilometers (about 864,000 miles), so these massive stars could be approximately 140 million to over 420 million kilometers (about 87 million to 261 million miles) in diameter.

A new classification scheme for exoplanet sizes

There are about 4433 exoplanets in the latest catalogs. Their radii have generally been measured by knowing the radius of their host star and then closely fitting the lightcurves as the planet transits across the face of the star. The radius of the host star is thus a key parameter and latest data release of the Gaia mission has enabled astronomers to improve the accuracy of stellar properties in its catalog very significantly – to a precision in radius of about 8 percent—for nearly one hundred and eight thousand stars in the Kepler exoplanet fields.

from Astronomy News - Space News, Exploration News, Earth Science News, Earth Science https://ift.tt/2Q16nS3

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