# And you think our Sun is big? HAH!
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-you-think-our-sun-is-big-hah/361954
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [June 24, 2006, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-you-think-our-sun-is-big-hah/361954 "2006-06-24T04:43:52Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2006, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-you-think-our-sun-is-big-hah/361954/1 "2006-06-24T04:43:52Z")
A picture really is worth a thousand words…
[http://www.rense.com/general72/size.htm](http://www.rense.com/general72/size.htm)
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### Author:  [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2006, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-you-think-our-sun-is-big-hah/361954/2 "2006-06-24T04:49:17Z")
Ah, you remind me of when men were real men, and woman were real woman and Green Fuzzy things from Antares were real Fuzzy things from Antares.
Jim {We really are less than a grain of sand when considered in cosmic proportion}
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### Author:  [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2006, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-you-think-our-sun-is-big-hah/361954/3 "2006-06-24T04:51:03Z")
o/` It's a great big universe and we're all really puny. We're just tiny little specks about the size of Mickey Rooney. It's big and black and inky and we're just really dinky. It's a big universe and we're not! o/`
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### Author:  [@Spatial\_Rift\_47](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spatial_Rift_47)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2006, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-you-think-our-sun-is-big-hah/361954/4 "2006-06-24T05:50:00Z")
> [@What Exit?](#):
>
> Ah, you remind me of when men were real men, and woman were real woman and Green Fuzzy things from Antares were real Fuzzy things from Antares.
Ahem. You must be thinking of the time when men were real men, women were real women, and small fuzzy things from Alpha Centauri were real small fuzzy things from Alpha Centauri. [/nitpick]
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### Author:  [@Seven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seven)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2006, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-you-think-our-sun-is-big-hah/361954/5 "2006-06-24T05:57:54Z")
> [@jayjay](#):
>
> o/` It's a great big universe and we're all really puny. We're just tiny little specks about the size of Mickey Rooney. It's big and black and inky and we're just really dinky. It's a big universe and we're not! o/`
Or,. as Eric once said…
\*Our galaxy itself contains a hundred million stars;
It’s a hundred thousand light-years side to side;
It bulges in the middle sixteen thousand light-years thick,
But out by us it’s just three thousand light-years wide.
We’re thirty thousand light-years from Galactic Central Point,
We go 'round every two hundred million years;
And our galaxy itself is one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.
\*
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### Author:  [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2006, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-you-think-our-sun-is-big-hah/361954/6 "2006-06-24T05:58:51Z")
> [@Elendil's Heir](#):
>
> A picture really is worth a thousand words…
>
> [http://www.rense.com/general72/size.htm](http://www.rense.com/general72/size.htm)
Thanks a lot for sharing this link. I’m amazed. I didn’t think the differences in star’s sizes could be so wide.
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### Author:  [@if6was9](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/if6was9)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2006, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-you-think-our-sun-is-big-hah/361954/7 "2006-06-24T06:07:51Z")
That one star (sun) is called Betelgeuse. They said Betelgeuse. Good Og, don’t say Betelgeuse a third time…
whoops…
Very cool link tho. I didn’t realize. I was under the impression our sun was a medium-sized star. Apparently not.
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### Author:  [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2006, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-you-think-our-sun-is-big-hah/361954/8 "2006-06-24T06:32:55Z")
Great…yet another reason for me to feel insignificant. ☹
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### Author:  [@ianzin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ianzin)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2006, 8:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-you-think-our-sun-is-big-hah/361954/9 "2006-06-24T08:31:24Z")
And the next pic in the series shows Antares looking really small, next to David Hasselhoff’s ego.
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### Author:  [@Happy\_Clam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Clam)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2006, 8:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-you-think-our-sun-is-big-hah/361954/10 "2006-06-24T08:49:16Z")
> [@Spatial Rift 47](#):
>
> Ahem. You must be thinking of the time when men were real men, women were real women, and small fuzzy things from Alpha Centauri were real small fuzzy things from Alpha Centauri. [/nitpick]
Or, for that time when men were _real_ men, women were _real_ women, and sheep were _real_ scared!
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### Author:  [@Dijon\_Warlock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dijon_Warlock)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2006, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-you-think-our-sun-is-big-hah/361954/11 "2006-06-24T09:57:15Z")
“You see that bright star up there? That’s the ‘Dog Star’!”
“Are you serious?”
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### Author:  [@Angua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angua)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2006, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-you-think-our-sun-is-big-hah/361954/12 "2006-06-24T10:12:40Z")
> [@if6was9](#):
>
> Very cool link tho. I didn’t realize. I was under the impression our sun was a medium-sized star. Apparently not.
IIRC from teaching undergrads, our sun is what’s termed a yellow dwarf star. It lies on the main sequence, but because of its lack of mass, it doesn’t get nearly as bright as larger stars do, but, since its still converting hydrogen into helium, it lies on the main sequence. Our sun’s small, but, compared to the total stellar population of our Galaxy, its not too unusual.
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### Author:  [@Podkayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Podkayne)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2006, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-you-think-our-sun-is-big-hah/361954/13 "2006-06-24T14:39:01Z")
What **Angua** said. Also, the larger stars are much rarer, and have much shorter lifetimes, so it’s not too inaccurate to think of the Sun as an “average” star.
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### Author:  [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2006, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-you-think-our-sun-is-big-hah/361954/14 "2006-06-24T14:50:38Z")
> [@Angua](#):
>
> IIRC from teaching undergrads, our sun is what’s termed a yellow dwarf star. It lies on the main sequence, but because of its lack of mass, it doesn’t get nearly as bright as larger stars do, but, since its still converting hydrogen into helium, it lies on the main sequence. Our sun’s small, but, compared to the total stellar population of our Galaxy, its not too unusual.
Noticeably, they don’t SHOW any stars smaller than our sun. To pick a nearby small red dwarf, Wolf 359 is somewhere around 0.18 solar radii. That means that, on the third picture in the series, it would probably appear much closer to the size of jupiter and saturn, than to our sun.
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### Author:  [@Ponder\_Stibbons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponder_Stibbons)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2006, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-you-think-our-sun-is-big-hah/361954/15 "2006-06-24T15:39:03Z")
> [@ianzin](#):
>
> And the next pic in the series shows Antares looking really small, next to David Hasselhoff’s ego.
That’s a bit of an unfair comparison, as David Hasselhoff’s ego is mostly empty space. 🆒
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### Author:  [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2006, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-you-think-our-sun-is-big-hah/361954/16 "2006-06-24T15:40:54Z")
So’re galaxies.
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### Author:  [@Nic2004](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nic2004)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2006, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-you-think-our-sun-is-big-hah/361954/17 "2006-06-24T16:05:20Z")
Thanks for sharing that. I just sat and showed it to my four-year-old son and he was amazed.
Thanks again
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### Author:  [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2006, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-you-think-our-sun-is-big-hah/361954/18 "2006-06-24T20:31:27Z")
> [@chrisk](#):
>
> Noticeably, they don’t SHOW any stars smaller than our sun. To pick a nearby small red dwarf, Wolf 359 is somewhere around 0.18 solar radii. That means that, on the third picture in the series, it would probably appear much closer to the size of jupiter and saturn, than to our sun.
Learn something new every day. I didn’t know that Wolf 359 is a real star. I thought the Star Trek writers just made it up.
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### Author:  [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2006, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-you-think-our-sun-is-big-hah/361954/19 "2006-06-24T21:36:01Z")
> [@Seven](#):
>
> Or,. as Eric once said…
>
> \*Our galaxy itself contains a hundred million stars;
> It’s a hundred thousand light-years side to side;
> It bulges in the middle sixteen thousand light-years thick,
> But out by us it’s just three thousand light-years wide.
> We’re thirty thousand light-years from Galactic Central Point,
> We go 'round every two hundred million years;
> And our galaxy itself is one of millions of billions
> In this amazing and expanding universe.
> \*
Yet nonetheless…
> [@](#):
>
> Well there’s only one way to go from here
> One way to go
> It’s logical it’s clear
> There’s only one way to go from here
> Without a doubt
> The only way to go from here is out!
And I’d appreciate song and recording info on the one’s above. They’d go well with some others I have.
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### Author:  [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2006, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-you-think-our-sun-is-big-hah/361954/20 "2006-06-24T21:54:18Z")
The song above is Eric Idle from the Monty Python movie _Meaning of Life_. And I’ll add the song _Benson, Arizona_ from Dark Star to your list.
Looking at Antares, I’m wondering what factor sun screen I’d need to have a little bathe in its light.
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