The Biggest Moon

Ganymede

Ganymede is the largest moon ever discovered and it’s right here in our solar system! It is one of 67 other natural satellites that orbit Jupiter and is over 150% larger than our own moon.

The Biggest Planet

WASP – 17b

WASP – 17b has a diameter of around 173,000 – 21 times larger than Earth and twice that of Jupiter – the largest planet in our solar system. Despite its size, WASP – 17b is almost 30 times less dense than Earth, making it the most diffuse known planet as well as the largest. Planets with densities as low as WASP – 17b are known as ‘puffy planets’.

The Biggest Star

VY Canis Majoris

This red ‘hypergiant’ is about 3.7 billion miles from pole to pole, that’s about the same size as our entire solar system. This object is so big that light would take over 5 and a half hours to pass through it – to put that on a more familiar scale, it takes a little over 8 minutes for light to travel the distance between the Sun and the Earth.

The Biggest Galaxy

IC 1101

100 Trillion Stars inhabit this mammoth galaxy that stretches roughly 6 million light years. IC 1101 grew to such an enormous size by colliding with other galaxies and is now over 50 times larger than our own Milky Way. If you travel 1 year at the speed of light you will be nearly 6 trillion miles from where you started… This makes IC 1101 about 1.2 sextillion miles long.

The Biggest Thing… Ever!

‘Giant Blob’

Discovered in 2006, this ‘giant blob’ is the largest object ever to be discovered. It is 200 million light years across and contains clusters of galaxies that are surrounded by gas clouds. Some of these gas clouds are up to 400,000 light years wide, about twice the size of our own Milky Way and are densely packed with galaxies. The ‘blob’ is 12 billion light years away and scientists have predicted that what we are seeing now has already collapsed under its own gravity and formed ‘super galaxies’.

Note

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