The largest planets in the universe.

August 25, 2014

Amazing spectacle

Just a year ago, scientists with the help of ALMA telescopes saw a stunning sight - the creation of a huge planet in the Milky Way galaxy, which was given the title of the largest planet in the Galaxy.

Astronomers from Cardiff University, using the powerful ALMA telescope, were lucky enough to observe the process of the birth of the most big star Milky way galaxies. The mass of the protostellar cloud was formed 500 times larger in diameter than the Sun, and its luminosity became several orders of magnitude higher.

protostellar cloud

Previously, scientists saw the formation of a protostellar cloud of gases and dust ten thousand light-years from Earth. Under the influence of gravity, it was compressed towards its own center. It was the process of creating new star, which is the largest in our galaxy.

The mass of the "newborn" is greater than the mass of the Sun by more than 500 times, and the luminosity that this large planet has in the Galaxy is several million times higher than the solar one. Scientists were lucky to observe this rare process and see it in great detail with the help of the world's most powerful radio telescopes. Scientists conducting the study note that a huge cloud of gases and cosmic dust was pulled inward under the forces of gravity, and a young star formed from long, thread-like cosmic substances.

Nicolas Paretto, lead researcher for the study from Cardiff University, described how, with the help of ALMA telescopes, scientists were able to see the entire process of creating a star in great detail, which will now appear in astronomy textbooks for children around the world. Their mission was to follow the birth of a giant star, and they did a great job of it. They observed the largest protostellar cloud in the entire Milky Way galaxy.

Might be a star

Astronomers directed the telescope to this part of the starry sky not at all by chance, since they guessed that it was in this area that the conditions were most favorable for the formation of huge stars. Although no one dreamed of seeing the creation of the largest star in the Galaxy. Scientists assumed that this protostellar cloud could produce a star that would exceed the mass of the Sun only a hundred times. Therefore, the result of their observations shocked and pleasantly surprised them.

Gary Fuller, co-author of the study, colleague Nicholas Paretto from the University of Manchester, said that such giants are a rarity in our galaxy, and it is incredibly problematic to see them at the time of creation. Star formation occurs very quickly, and the planet does not remain young for long. So the scientist considers these studies more than successful.

star formation

Another member of the research team, Ana Duarte-Cabral, a representative of the University of Bordeaux, said that during the formation of a star, matter was pulled toward the center unevenly. When closely examining the protostellar cloud, scientists noticed dense gas-dust filaments that were attracted to the center the fastest.

Astronomers hope to continue studying this exciting process of formation of huge luminaries with the help of the most powerful radio telescopes in the world and hope that they will be lucky to see the birth of more than one stellar giant.

Our solar system is one of the components of the galaxy. Here the Milky Way stretches for hundreds of thousands of light years.

The central element of the solar system is the sun. Eight planets revolve around it (the ninth planet, Pluto, was excluded from this list, since its mass and gravitational forces do not allow it to be on a par with other planets). However, each planet is not like the next. Among them there are both small and truly huge, icy and red-hot, consisting of gas and dense.

The largest planet in the Universe is TrES-4. It was discovered in 2006 and is located in the constellation Hercules. A planet called TrES-4 orbits a star that is about 1,400 light-years away from planet Earth.

According to scientists, there is no solid surface on the planet. Therefore, you can only dive into it. It is a mystery how the density of the substance of which this celestial body is composed is so low.

Jupiter

The largest planet in the solar system, Jupiter, is located at a distance of 778 million kilometers from the Sun. This planet, the fifth in a row, is a gas giant. The composition is very similar to the sun. At least its atmosphere is predominantly hydrogen.

Elder Brother of the Earth

Jupiter and its moons through a telescope

It is worth noting that the atmosphere of Jupiter is 11% helium, and 89% hydrogen. This ratio makes it similar to the chemical composition of the Sun. The orange color is due to the compounds of sulfur and phosphorus. For people, they are detrimental, as there is acetylene and poisonous ammonia.

Saturn

It is the next largest planet in the solar system. Through a telescope, you can clearly see that Saturn is more flattened than Jupiter. There are bands on the surface parallel to the equator, but they are less distinct than those of the previous planet. Numerous and dim details are visible in the stripes. And it was from them that the scientist William Herschel was able to determine the period of rotation of the planet. It's only 10 hours and 16 minutes. Saturn's equatorial diameter is slightly smaller than Jupiter. However, in terms of mass, it is three times inferior to the largest planet. In addition, Saturn has a low average density - 0.7 grams per square centimeter. This is because the giant planets are made up of helium and hydrogen. In the bowels of Saturn, the pressure is not the same as on Jupiter. The surface temperature is close to the temperature at which methane melts.

Saturn through a telescope

Movie about Saturn

Uranus

The seventh planet from the Sun in the solar system, therefore, is poorly lit. She four times more earth by diameter. Some details on Uranus are difficult to distinguish due to the small angular dimensions. Uranus rotates around its axis, lying on its side. Uranus orbits the Sun in 84 years.

Traveling the planets: Uranus and Neptune

The ancient pyramids, the tallest skyscraper in the world in Dubai, almost half a kilometer high, the grandiose Everest - just looking at these huge objects is breathtaking. And at the same time, compared to some objects in the universe, they are microscopic in size.

The largest asteroid

Today, Ceres is considered the largest asteroid in the universe: its mass is almost a third of the entire mass of the asteroid belt, and its diameter is over 1000 kilometers. The asteroid is so large that it is sometimes referred to as a "dwarf planet".

largest planet

The largest planet in the Universe is TrES-4. It was discovered in 2006 and is located in the constellation Hercules. A planet called TrES-4 orbits a star that is about 1,400 light-years away from planet Earth.

The planet TrES-4 itself is a ball that consists mainly of hydrogen. Its size is 20 times the size of the Earth. The researchers claim that the diameter of the discovered planet is almost 2 times (more precisely, 1.7) the diameter of Jupiter (it is the largest planet in the solar system). The temperature of TrES-4 is about 1260 degrees Celsius.

The biggest black hole

In terms of area, black holes are not that big. However, given their mass, these objects are the largest in the universe. And the largest black hole in space is a quasar, whose mass is 17 billion times (!) More than the mass of the Sun. This is a huge black hole at the very center of the galaxy NGC 1277, an object that is larger than the entire solar system - its mass is 14% of the total mass of the entire galaxy.

largest galaxy

The so-called "super galaxies" are several galaxies merged together and located in galactic "clusters", clusters of galaxies. The largest of these "super galaxies" is IC1101, which is 60 times the size of the galaxy that hosts our solar system. The length of IC1101 is 6 million light years. By comparison, the Milky Way is only 100,000 light-years across.

The largest star in the universe

VY Canis Majoris is the largest known star and one of the most bright stars in the sky. It is a red hypergiant located in the constellation Canis Major. The radius of this star is about 1800-2200 times greater than the radius of our Sun, its diameter is about 3 billion kilometers.

Huge deposits of water

Astronomers have discovered the largest and most massive reservoir of water ever found in the universe. The giant cloud, about 12 billion years old, contains 140 trillion times more water than all of Earth's oceans combined.

A cloud of gaseous water surrounds a supermassive black hole located 12 billion light-years from Earth. This discovery shows that water has dominated the universe for almost its entire existence, the researchers said.

largest cluster of galaxies

El Gordo is located more than 7 billion light-years from Earth, so what we are seeing today is just an early stage of it. According to the researchers who have studied this galaxy cluster, it is the largest, hottest and emits the most radiation than any other known cluster at the same distance or further.

The central galaxy at the center of El Gordo is incredibly bright and has an unusual blue glow. The authors of the studies suggest that this extreme galaxy is the result of a collision and merger of two galaxies.

Using the Spitzer Space Telescope and optical imaging, scientists estimate that 1 percent of the cluster's total mass is stars, and the rest is hot gas that fills the space between the stars. This ratio of stars to gas is similar to the ratio in other massive clusters.

SuperVoid

More recently, scientists have discovered the largest cold spot in the universe (at least known science universe). It is located in the southern part of the constellation Eridanus. With its length of 1.8 billion light years, this spot baffles scientists, because they could not even imagine that such an object could really exist.

Despite the presence of the word “void” in the title (from the English “void” means “emptiness”), the space here is not completely empty. This region of space contains about 30 percent fewer clusters of galaxies than their surroundings. According to scientists, voids make up to 50 percent of the volume of the universe, and this percentage, in their opinion, will continue to grow due to super-strong gravity, which attracts all the matter around them. Two things make this void interesting: its unimaginable size and its relation to the mysterious cold relic spot WMAP.

superblob

In 2006, the title of the largest object in the universe was given to the discovered mysterious cosmic “bubble” (or blob, as scientists usually call them). True, he retained this title for a short time. This 200-million-light-year-long bubble is a gigantic collection of gas, dust, and galaxies.

Each of the three "tentacles" of this bubble contains galaxies that are four times denser among themselves than is usual in the Universe. The cluster of galaxies and gas balls inside this bubble are called Liman-Alpha bubbles. It is believed that these objects were formed approximately 2 billion years after the Big Bang and are real relics of the ancient Universe.

Shapley Supercluster

For many years, scientists have believed that our Milky Way galaxy is being pulled across the universe toward the constellation Centaurus at a speed of 2.2 million kilometers per hour. Astronomers theorize that the reason for this is the Great Attractor, an object with such a force of gravity, which is already enough to attract entire galaxies to itself. True, to find out what kind of object it is, scientists for a long time could not, since this object is located beyond the so-called "zone of avoidance" (ZOA), a region of the sky near the plane of the Milky Way, where the absorption of light by interstellar dust is so great that it is impossible to see what is behind it.

As soon as scientists decided to look deeper into space, they soon discovered that the "great cosmic magnet" is a much larger object than previously thought. This object is the Shapley supercluster.

The Shapley Supercluster is a supermassive cluster of galaxies. It is so huge and has such a powerful attraction that our own galaxy. The supercluster consists of more than 8,000 galaxies with a mass of more than 10 million Suns. Every galaxy in our region of space is currently being pulled by this supercluster.

Supercluster Laniakea

Galaxies are usually grouped together. These groups are called clusters. The regions of space where these clusters are more closely spaced are called superclusters. Previously, astronomers mapped these objects by determining their physical location in the universe, but recently a new way of mapping local space has been invented, shedding light on data previously unknown to astronomy.

The new principle of mapping the local space and the galaxies located in it is based not so much on the calculation of the physical location of the object, but on the measurement of the gravitational effect exerted by it.

The first results of the study of our local galaxies using the new research method have already been obtained. Scientists, based on the boundaries of the gravitational flow, mark a new supercluster. The importance of this study lies in the fact that it will allow us to better understand where our place in the universe is. The Milky Way was previously thought to be inside the Virgo supercluster, but a new method of investigation shows that this region is just an arm of the even larger Laniakea supercluster, one of the largest objects in the universe. It stretches for 520 million light years, and somewhere inside it we are.

Great Wall Sloan

The Sloan Great Wall was first discovered in 2003 as part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, a scientific mapping of hundreds of millions of galaxies to determine the presence of the largest objects in the universe. Sloan's Great Wall is a gigantic galactic filament of multiple superclusters that spread like tentacles across the universe. giant octopus. At 1.4 billion light-years long, the "wall" was once thought to be the largest object in the universe.

The Great Wall of Sloan itself is not as well understood as the superclusters that lie within it. Some of these superclusters are interesting in their own right and deserve special mention. One, for example, has a core of galaxies that together look like giant tendrils from the side. Another supercluster has a very high level of interaction between galaxies, many of which are currently undergoing a merger.

Group of quasars Huge-LQG7

Quasars are high-energy astronomical objects located at the center of galaxies. It is believed that the center of quasars are supermassive black holes, which pull on the surrounding matter. This results in huge radiation, which is 1000 times more powerful than all the stars inside the galaxy. Currently the third most large object In the Universe, the Huge-LQG group of quasars is considered, consisting of 73 quasars scattered over 4 billion light-years. Scientists believe that this massive group of quasars, as well as similar ones, are one of the main precursors and sources of the largest objects in the universe, such as, for example, Sloane's Great Wall.

Giant gamma ring

Stretching for 5 billion light-years, the Giant galactic gamma-ray ring (Giant GRB Ring) is the second largest object in the universe. In addition to its incredible size, this object attracts attention due to its unusual shape. Astronomers studying bursts of gamma rays (huge bursts of energy that are formed as a result of the death of massive stars) discovered a series of nine bursts, the sources of which were at the same distance from the Earth. These bursts formed a ring in the sky, 70 times the diameter of the full moon.

Great Wall of Hercules - North Corona

The largest object in the universe was also discovered by astronomers as part of their observation of gamma rays. This object, dubbed the Great Wall of Hercules - Northern Corona, spans 10 billion light-years, making it twice the size of the Giant Galactic Gamma Ring. Since the brightest bursts of gamma rays are produced by larger stars, usually located in areas of space where there is more matter, astronomers each time metaphorically see each such burst as a needle prick into something larger. When scientists discovered that there were too many gamma-ray bursts in the region of space towards the constellations Hercules and the Northern Corona, they determined that there was an astronomical object here, most likely a dense concentration of galaxy clusters and other matter.

space web

Scientists believe that the expansion of the universe is not random. There are theories according to which all the galaxies of the cosmos are organized into one incredible structure, reminiscent of filamentous connections that unite dense regions. These filaments are scattered between less dense voids. Scientists call this structure the Cosmic Web.

According to scientists, the web formed at a very early stage in the history of the universe. The early stage of the formation of the web was unstable and heterogeneous, which subsequently helped the formation of everything that is now in the universe. It is believed that the "threads" of this web played big role in the evolution of the Universe, thanks to which this evolution has accelerated. The galaxies inside these filaments have a significantly higher star formation rate. In addition, these threads are a kind of bridge for gravitational interaction between galaxies. After forming in these filaments, galaxies move towards galaxy clusters, where they eventually die.

Only recently have scientists begun to understand what this Cosmic Web really is. Moreover, they even detected its presence in the radiation of the distant quasar they were studying. Quasars are known to be the brightest objects in the universe. The light of one of them went straight to one of the filaments, which heated up the gases in it and made them glow. Based on these observations, scientists have drawn threads between other galaxies, thus compiling a picture of the "skeleton of the cosmos."

To determine how big a particular planet is, you need to take into account criteria such as its mass and diameter. The largest planet in the solar system is 300 times the size of Earth., and its diameter exceeds the earth by eleven times. A list of the largest planets in the solar system, their names, sizes, photos and what they are known for, read in our rating.

Diameter, mass, length of day and orbital radius are relative to the Earth.

9. Pluto, diameter ∼ 2370 km

Pluto is the second largest dwarf planet in the solar system after Ceres. Even when he was one of the full-fledged planets, he was far from the largest of them, since his mass is equal to 1/6 of the mass of the moon. Pluto has a diameter of 2370 km and is made up of rock and ice. It is not surprising that it is quite cold on its surface - minus 230 ° C.

8. Mercury ∼ 4,879 km

A tiny world with a mass of almost twenty times less than the mass of the Earth, and a diameter of 2 ½ less than the Earth. In fact, Mercury is closer in size to the Moon than to the Earth, and today is considered the smallest of the planets in the solar system. Mercury has a rocky surface dotted with craters. The Messenger spacecraft recently confirmed that deep craters on the perpetually shadowed side of Mercury contain icy water.

7. Mars ∼ 6,792 km

Mars about twice smaller than Earth and has a diameter of 6.792 km. However, its mass is only a tenth of the earth's. This not too big planet of the solar system, the fourth closest to the Sun, has an axial tilt of 25.1 degrees. Due to this, the seasons change on it, as on Earth. A day (sol) on Mars is equal to 24 hours and 40 minutes. In the southern hemisphere, summers are hot and winters are cold, while in the northern hemisphere there are no such sharp contrasts, where both summer and winter are mild. We can say ideal conditions for building a greenhouse and growing potatoes.

6. Venus ∼ 12,100 km

In sixth place in the ranking of the largest and smallest planets is a celestial body named after the goddess of beauty. It is so close to the Sun that it appears first in the evening and last to disappear in the morning. Therefore, Venus has long been known as the "evening star" and "morning star". It has a diameter of 12,100 km, which is almost comparable to the size of the Earth (1000 km less), and 80% of the mass of the Earth.

The surface of Venus mainly consists of large plains of volcanic origin, the rest - of giant mountains. The atmosphere is composed of carbon dioxide, with thick clouds of sulfur dioxide. This atmosphere has the strongest greenhouse effect known in the solar system, and the temperature on Venus is kept at around 460 degrees.

5. Earth ∼ 12,742 km

The third planet closest to the Sun. Earth is the only planet in the solar system that has life. It has an axial tilt of 23.4 degrees, its diameter is 12,742 km, and its mass is 5.972 septillion kg.

The age of our planet is very respectable - 4.54 billion years. And most this time she is accompanied natural satellite- Moon. It is believed that the moon was formed when a celestial body big size, namely Mars, impacted the Earth, causing the ejection of enough material that the Moon could form. The Moon has had a stabilizing effect on the tilt of the Earth's axis and is the source of the ebb and flow of the oceans.

“It is rather inappropriate to call this planet Earth, when it is obvious that it is Ocean” - Arthur Clarke.

4. Neptune ∼ 49,000 km

The gas giant planet of the solar system is the eighth celestial body closest to the Sun. The diameter of Neptune is 49,000 km, and the mass is 17 times greater than the earth. It has powerful cloud bands (they, along with storms and cyclones, were photographed by Voyager 2). The wind speed on Neptune reaches 600 m / s. Due to its great distance from the Sun, the planet is one of the coldest, with temperatures reaching minus 220 degrees Celsius in the upper atmosphere.

3. Uranus ∼ 50,000 km

On the third line of the list of the largest planets in the solar system is the seventh closest to the Sun, the third largest and the fourth heaviest of the worlds. The diameter of Uranus (50,000 km) is four times the Earth's, and its mass is 14 times the mass of our planet.

Uranus has 27 known moons ranging in size from over 1500 km to less than 20 km in diameter. The planet's moons are made of ice rocks and other micronutrients. Uranus itself has a rocky core, surrounded by a cover of water, ammonia and methane. The atmosphere consists of hydrogen, helium and methane with a top layer of clouds.

2. Saturn ∼ 116,400 km

The second of the largest planets in the solar system is known for its ring system. She was first seen by Galileo Galilei in 1610. Galileo believed that Saturn is accompanied by two other planets that are on either side of it. In 1655, Christian Huygens, using an improved telescope, was able to see Saturn in sufficient detail to suggest that there are rings around it. They extend from 7,000 km to 120,000 km above the surface of Saturn, which itself has a radius 9 times that of the Earth (57,000 km) and a mass 95 times that of the Earth.

1. Jupiter ∼ 142,974 km

Number one is the winner of the planetary heavy hit parade, Jupiter is the largest planet bearing the name of the Roman king of the gods. One of the five planets visible to the naked eye. It is so massive that it would contain the rest of the worlds of the solar system, minus the sun. The total diameter of Jupiter is 142.984 km. Given its size, Jupiter rotates very quickly, making one rotation every 10 hours. At its equator, there is a rather large centrifugal force, due to which the planet has a pronounced hump. That is, the diameter of Jupiter's equator is 9000 km larger than the diameter measured at the poles. As befits a king, Jupiter has many satellites (more than 60) but most of them are quite small (less than 10 km in diameter). Four largest moon, discovered in 1610 by Galileo Galilei, are named after the favorites of Zeus, the Greek counterpart of Jupiter.

What is known about Jupiter

Before the invention of the telescope, planets were viewed as objects roaming the sky. Therefore, the word "planet" from Greek is translated as "wanderer". Our solar system has 8 known planets, although originally 9 celestial objects were recognized as planets. In the 1990s, Pluto was "demoted" from the status of a true planet to the status of a dwarf planet. BUT The largest planet in the solar system is called Jupiter..

The radius of the planet is 69,911 km. That is, all the most major planets The solar system could fit inside Jupiter (see photo). And if we take only our Earth, then 1300 such planets will fit inside the body of Jupiter.

It is the fifth planet from the Sun. It is named after a Roman god.

Jupiter's atmosphere is made up of gases, mainly helium and hydrogen, which is why it is also called the gas giant of the solar system. Jupiter's surface is made up of an ocean of liquid hydrogen.

Jupiter has the strongest magnetosphere of all the other planets, 20,000 times stronger than Earth's magnetosphere.

The largest planet in the solar system rotates around its axis faster than all the "neighbors". One complete revolution takes just under 10 hours (Earth takes 24 hours). Because of this rapid rotation, Jupiter is convex at the equator and "flattened" at the poles. The planet is 7 percent wider at the equator than at the poles.

The largest celestial body in the solar system revolves around the Sun once every 11.86 Earth years.

Jupiter broadcasts radio waves so strong that they can be detected from Earth. They come in two forms:

1. strong bursts that occur when Io, the closest of Jupiter's large moons, passes through certain regions magnetic field planets;
2. continuous radiation from surface and particles high energy Jupiter in its radiation belts. These radio waves could help scientists explore the oceans on the space giant's satellites.

The most unusual feature of Jupiter

Undoubtedly main feature Jupiter's Great Red Spot is a giant hurricane that has been raging for over 300 years.

• The diameter of the Great Red Spot is three times the diameter of the Earth, and its edge rotates around the center and counterclockwise at a tremendous speed (360 km per hour).
• The color of the storm, which typically ranges from brick red to light brown, may be due to the presence of small amounts of sulfur and phosphorus.
• The spot either increases or decreases over time. A hundred years ago, education was twice as large as it is now and much brighter.

There are many other spots on Jupiter, but only in the Southern Hemisphere do they exist for some reason for a long time.

Rings of Jupiter

Unlike Saturn's rings, which are clearly visible from Earth even through small telescopes, Jupiter's rings are very difficult to see. Their existence became known thanks to data from Voyager 1 (NASA spacecraft) in 1979, but their origin was a mystery. Data from the Galileo spacecraft that orbited Jupiter from 1995 to 2003 later confirmed that these rings were created by meteoroid impacts on small nearby moons of the largest planet.

Jupiter's ring system includes:

1. halo - inner layer of small particles;
2. the main ring is brighter than the other two;
3. outer "spider" ring.

The main ring is flattened, about 30 km thick and 6,400 km wide. The halo extends halfway from the main ring down to the Jovian cloud tops and expands as it interacts with the planet's magnetic field. The third ring is known as the spider ring due to its transparency.

Meteorites that strike the surface of Jupiter's small inner moons kick up dust, which then enters orbit around Jupiter, forming rings.

Jupiter has 53 confirmed moons orbiting it and 14 more unconfirmed moons.

Jupiter's four largest moons—called the Galilean moons—are Io, Ganymede, Europa, and Callisto. The honor of their discovery belongs to Galileo Galilei, and it was in 1610. They are named after those close to Zeus (the Roman counterpart of which is Jupiter).

Volcanoes rage on Io; there is a subglacial ocean on Europa and, perhaps, there is life in it; Ganymede is the largest of the satellites in the solar system, and has its own magnetosphere; and Callisto has the lowest reflectivity of the four Galilean satellites. There is a version that the surface of this moon consists of a dark, colorless rock.

Video: Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system

We hope that we have given a complete answer to the question of which planet in the solar system is the largest!