Overview
The universe is extremely grand. Even if it is described in the most radical way, many people cannot understand how huge the concept of space of the universe is.
has a large number of planets and celestial bodies in this space. We humans have luckily gained wisdom in evolution and can explore the mysterious universe and planets to the best of our ability.
The universe is so grand and there are so many planets. In the depths of the vast universe, will there be a planet with a diameter of more than one light year?
The birth of the planet
Generally speaking, the size of a star is far larger than that of a planet, so we only take out the process of the star formation to share with you. The predecessor of the star
is the nebula. The matter inside these nebula is likely to be thrown out of the singularity in the early stage of the Big Bang. These substances are mainly composed of elements such as hydrogen and helium.
can generate nuclear fusion reaction during the process of gathering each other, thereby causing compression of the central mass, forming a huge gravity, attracting more elemental matter to gather, thus forming a stable spherical astral body.
After these matters gather to a certain extent, a brand new star appears. These star-like matters attracted by it will become nutrients for the stars, constantly performing nuclear fusion reactions, and sprinkles light and heat energy outward. The birth of stars is accidental, but the formation process is not complicated, and can even be simply summarized as the gathering process of nuclear matter . However, due to its own gravitational collapse, these substances initiate nuclear fusion.
Then, if a star captures a lot of nebula matter in its motion trajectory. So can the diameter of this star break through the limit and reach the light-year level?
light-year star
Before we figure out this problem, let’s first understand the concept of light-year .
light years is the longest unit of length defined by humans. In short, it is the sum of distances generated by traveling at a speed of light for one year . In general environment, the speed of light is 300,000 kilometers per minute, while the circumference of the earth's equator is only 40,000 kilometers. If you move for a year at this speed and convert it into a common unit of length in our society, it is a complete 9460 billion kilometers.
To a certain extent, the specific concept of this length has surpassed our ordinary imagination. If there is really a star with a diameter of one light year, it must be extremely spectacular.
Unfortunately, this kind of star does not exist in theory, because huge amounts of gravity are required when the star attracts nebula matter.
As long as matter accumulates to the limit of gravity, this primitive nebula will lose its ability to grow in size and will eventually become a stable star.
Scientists pointed out that even if compresses all the matter that humans have discovered together, the gravity generated is not enough to help stars capture nebula matter that can generate a light-year diameter.
Therefore, it is absolutely impossible for light-year stars to exist, and astral bodies of this size may only appear in science fiction novels and film and television works.
Since such a large star cannot appear in the universe, what is the limit of the star system?
The limit of the star volume
star system has not been discovered yet, because our exploration of cosmic space is still in a very immature stage, and we can only observe celestial bodies closer to the earth, and in the deeper cosmic space, there are very likely large stars that exceed people's cognition.
In short, as of now, the largest star discovered by humans is called Shield UY. This star is located in Shield , which is a full 5,100 light-year distance from the earth.
According to scientists' observations, UY, the Shield, has a diameter of 2.4 billion kilometers. Such a body size can definitely be called a giant in the stellar world. If UY is placed in the solar system, UY, the Shield, can even directly swallow almost all the stars within Saturn, .
Its body size is 5 billion times that of the sun, but its mass is only about 30 times that of the sun.
Scientists believe that the reason why UY, the Shield, has such a huge size, is entirely because the nebula material that this star swallowed in the early stage is relatively loose, with a large gap between each other, which causes the entire star to be in a semi-hull state. We can also understand the shield UY as " false fat" .
No matter what, the UY of the Shield is still the largest star observed by humans. Through it, we can also understand this mysterious and vast universe better.
The future of stars
Everything in the world has an ending day, even stars. Although UY, the Shield, is a very unstable star. Because its mass is very light, UY, the Shield, consumes more relative resources when undergoing nuclear fusion reactions. , scientists can often see UY, the Shield, launch a large number of stellar winds to the outside.
In fact, this kind of star motion pattern is their loss of life. When the core elements inside UY in the shield are exhausted, it will expand again and become an supernova .
Then after a shocking explosion, the shield UY will collapse all its mass into one place, forming a huge black hole.
Almost all stars in the world have such an ending. Even our sun will burn out in four billion years and usher in its own collapse. The universe will inevitably usher in its own end in the future, but we humans probably cannot witness it.
Conclusion
Although the universe is extremely mysterious, there are still certain development laws inside it. Perhaps UY, the Shield, is not the largest star in the universe, but the light-year diameter-level star we imagine is absolutely impossible.
However, raising such a question is not a bad thing. Human beings must always be curious about the universe in order to maintain their own motivation for exploration. Perhaps in the future, we can discover more secrets in the universe and witness more magnificent astral bodies.
