0 Question: how many times larger is the star Betelgeuse than the Earth? Keywords: betelgeuse, earth, larger, space, star Asked by lukealanpatrick to Cesar, Emily, Jamie, Kate, Philippa on 17 Jun 2011.
Jamie Gallagher answered on 17 Jun 2011:
If my quick calculation is right then it is 128816.5 times bigger Have a look at this video, I love it!
Cesar Lopez-Monsalvo answered on 17 Jun 2011:
Ok, first you should know a few things
1. The sun’s radius is 109 times larger than the radius of the earth. 2. Betelgeuse’s radius is 1500 times larger than the sun’s.
So Betelgeuse’s radius is 109 x 1500 = 163 500 times larger than the earth’s.
You can also see this link
http://primaxstudio.com/stuff/scale_of_universe/
Cesar commented on 17 Jun 2011:
Nice! We have an order of magnitude disagreement! 😀
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Jamie commented on 17 Jun 2011:
Opps decimal in the wrong place it seems! Time to show my working! Betelgeuse Radius = 1180 solar radii => 1180 x 6.955E5 km = 8.2069E11km then I divided by the radius of the earth 6371km so I got 128816.5 times bigger
I can live with that … about 20 percent difference is pretty good for this quick calculation. It sounded almost like a “Fermi question”
Comments
Cesar commented on :
Nice! We have an order of magnitude disagreement! 😀
Jamie commented on :
Opps decimal in the wrong place it seems!
Time to show my working!
Betelgeuse Radius = 1180 solar radii => 1180 x 6.955E5 km = 8.2069E11km
then I divided by the radius of the earth 6371km
so I got 128816.5 times bigger
Cesar commented on :
I can live with that … about 20 percent difference is pretty good for this quick calculation. It sounded almost like a “Fermi question”