Big Think
2026-08-31 06:00 en
Our starry skies make us wonder, “Is the Sun a typical star?” From their earliest beginnings to their final extent before fading away, Sun-like stars will grow from their present size to the size of a red giant (~the Earth’s orbit) to up to ~5 light-years in diameter, typically. The largest known planetary nebulae can reach approximately double that size, up to ~10 light-years across, but none of this necessarily means that the Sun is a typical, average star. Credit : Ivan Bojičić, Quentin Parker, and David Frew, Laboratory for Space Research, HKU In the 1600s, Christiaan Huygens first…