That's what she said!

BAM!

I think there is an error in the picture where Rigel is the largest star shown (it doesn't look like it's the largest, but Aldebaran is in reality smaller by 18 solar radii). It's radius is 62 solar radii, while the orbit of Neptune, thus the size of our solar system is around 6450 solar radii. It means that no known star is in fact larger than the system of Sol -> VY Canis Majoris is 1800-2100 times the size of the Sun.

Correct me if my reasoning is wrong.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Apr 26 2009, 12:31 pm by Szgk.

The distances between planets in our solar system in the picture aren't to scale.

I meant this. Again, Rigel is 62 solar radii in radius, whereas the Solar System (by that I mean Neptune's orbit) - roughly 6448.

The only explanation I can see for that is that when it says 'our solar system' it means 'the planets in our solar system on end'.

Yeah, it probably means up to Pluto or Neptune. The Oort Cloud may be up to 1 LY in diametre.

When you look a few pictures above you see what it means. The planets are "listed" one next to another, disregarding their real distances. So basically the added diameters plus a bit space in between.
Pretty stupid way to describe/compare, but that's what they mean.