This is really interesting Planets and Stars and their relative sizes

I, draqon of white eternal stars proclaim that your post lacks the necessary image of discussion. To which I strongly urge you to act in accordance and resolve this issue this instant.

Well we can talk about the comparative size of stars; the sun compared with the largest star VY Canis Majoris (VY CMa) which is a red Hypergiant star.
The radius of VY CMa is 1,800 to 2,100 solar radii.
To illustrate, if Earth's Sun were replaced by VY Canis Majoris, its diameter might extend to the orbit of Saturn.

Unfortunately, VY Canis Majoris is about to die!

"When VY Canis Majoris dies, it will die as a core-collapse supernova or even a hyper-nova depending on it's mass and composition. It's huge size does not necessarily mean it will explode as a hyper-nova and give rise to a gamma ray burst when some or all of the star becomes a black hole. Even so, it's much more likely to explode as a core-collapse supernova that will produce a neutron star or a black hole depending on what happens when it's core is converted into iron. When that happens, the outer layers will initially be ejected back into space at speeds of 5,000 miles per second or more, and the wreckage will outshine the entire galaxy for weeks or months."

WOW!

"If however, VY Canis Majoris is massive enough and has the right composition to explode as a hyper-nova, the resulting gamma ray burst will destroy life on planets caught in the jets spat out by the newly born black hole thousands of light years away. These jets form along the doomed star's axis of rotation, and are highly focused like laser beams. If an inhabited planet is not in the way, it would survive unharmed unless it was in close proximity to the supernova. A planet or life on that planet caught in the jet is doomed. Planets within a 100 light years would melt or vaporize from the jet's onslaught, which are composed of high energy plasma moving at nearly the speed of light.They are nature's ultimate death ray, much like the Death Star out of the Star Wars movies."

It's the scariest bomb ever!

This apparently was not a nova or at least not a typical one, V858 Monocerotis is the strangely coloured red star in our slide show some astronomers argue that the spectra of the star resembled that of L-type brown dwarfs. If that is the case, V838 Monocerotis would be the first known L-type supergiant.
It was also designated Nova Monocerotis in 2002. V838 Monocerotis reached maximum visual magnitude of 6.75 on February 6, 2002 after which it started to dim rapidly, as expected. However, in early March the star started to brighten again.
The outburst of V838 Monocerotis may be a nova eruption albeit a very unusual one or a collision with a smaller star?

Stars in the mass class of Eta Carinae, with more than 100 times the mass of the Sun, produce more than a million times as much light as the Sun. I know the system contains at least two stars. Are any of them comparable to VY Canis Majoris?

Eta Carinae used to be considered the most massive star known but was demoted when they found the binary.
It is currently classified as a luminous blue variable binary star due to peculiarities in its pattern of brightening and dimming.
VY CMa is an M star with high-luminosity and a temperature of about 3,000 K and suggesting that it is a highly evolved star. During its main sequence, it would have been an O star with a mass of about 30 to 40 M.

For once we agree.

This little animated gif is awesome!

~String

Yes "Mea culpa!” I have been trying to rectify that with subsequent postings relating to stars on that Gif. Namely the mighty VY Canis Majoris and V838 Monocerotis which is a very strange looking star.
I tried to locate VY Canis Majoris on the “World Wide Telescope but there was no image of it on there (very slack) anyway this image is interesting you can see how much gas it’s blowing off this star can go Nova anytime soon.





Jets of molecules, indicated by red and blue arrows, flow from the supergiant star
VY Canis Majoris photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope. The blue arrow
(lower right) shows the slight deviation of the "squirt" flow from the direction towards
us. The curved nebulous tail (CNT) and red arrow (upper right) show the fan of material
flowing away from us and to the side. The white arrows and transparent circle show
the general spherical flow of matter outward. Credit: UA Steward Observatory