The Largest Star (2021 Version)

Stars come in a wide range of sizes, but how do we calculate a star's size to determine which is the largest? In this episode, we will find out how stars are measured to determine their mind-boggling sizes, and above all, which of them are the biggest of all.

PLEASE NOTE: This one is an older video of mine, back in 2021 when it was thought that the largest known star was Stephenson 2-18. It has since been reassessed as most likely not a member of the Stephenson-2 Cluster, and thus not amongst the candidates for the largest star. I plan to remake this video some time in 2026.

SOUNDTRACK:

Two songs in this video were made by Chris Zabriskie. (http://chriszabriskie.com/)

- Abandon Babylon (Album from which the songs came: https://chriszabriskie.bandcamp.com/album/abandon-babylon)Dark Fog & Ice Demon by Kevin MacLeod are both licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence.

Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1300031 , http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1200061

Artist: http://incompetech.com/

All other music provided by the YouTube Audio Library
CHAPTERS:

00:00: Introduction

01:04: What Are Stars?

05:40: How Stars Get Big

09:38: Problems with Direct Measurements

11:31: Parallax

13:01: Indirectly Measuring Stars

15:33: VY Canis Majoris

18:30: UY Scuti

22:59: Stephenson 2-18