Extreme Astronomy Record Holders

The Biggest, Brightest, Oldest, and Farthest Objects in the Universe

Nov 8, 2008

People are fascinated by extremes, such as those statistics put out by the Guinness Book of World Records. But what would be on a list in a book of Universe Records?

In a universe that is unendingly large, any record holders for largest, brightest, farthest, and so forth are at best temporary designations. The title holders received their top place due to our position in the universe and how these objects look from Earth and what humans are capable of seeing and knowing. Without further ado, here is the list of the most extreme objects in the universe, until science finds the next greatest object....

The Largest Star Known in the Universe

The prize goes to the star VY Canis Majoris. VY Canis Majoris is also known by the designation HD 58061. This hypergiant star is 2,000 times the radius of our sun and lies approximately 5,000 light-years away. But even though it has the most massive size of any star known, it is not easy to see from Earth, shining as a mere 8th magnitude star. The reason for its dimness is that it is enveloped in a cloud of dust, turning it into an unremarkable star seen only through good binoculars or a telescope in the constellation Canis Major.

The Brightest Star as Seen from Earth

VY Canis Majoris is not the brightest star as seen from Earth, that title would go to Sirius, also coincidentally in Canis Major. It is strictly a point of view designation, as Sirius is only bright to us due to how close it is to Earth. Sirius is magnitude -1.4 and lies about eight and half light-years from Earth.

The Largest Known Galaxy in the Universe

Inside the galaxy cluster known as Abell 2029 lies a monster. This giant galaxy is an elliptical that is believed to have been formed from the mergers of many other galaxies. At more than 1 billion light-years away in the constellation Serpens, IC 1101, the enormous elliptical in Abell 2029, is approximately 6 million light-years wide, compared to our Milky Way Galaxy that stretches 100,000 light-years from end to end.

The Oldest Objects in the Universe

The objects that were created after the Big Bang emerged out of the resulting radiation. These objects that astronomers have detected are either extremely bright stars more than 1,000 times more massive than our sun, or quasars, large black holes that consume enormous amounts of gas and debris and re-emit the materials in almost unparalleled bursts of energy. These first objects are more than 13 billion light-years away.

The Most Distant Object Seen in the Universe

The farthest object astronomers have yet seen is around 13 billion light-years away from us and existed when the universe was just 750 million years old. The galaxy was seen by the Hubble and Keck telescopes, which saw a curved object that the galactic cluster Abell 2218 magnified using gravitational lensing. This galaxy has a record-setting redshift of 7.

The biggest, farthest, and oldest objects in the universe are temporary designations. We await the next record-setting discovery.

The copyright of the article Extreme Astronomy Record Holders in Astronomy & Space is owned by Kelly Whitt. Permission to republish Extreme Astronomy Record Holders in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.