Talk:List of largest stars

Lower UY Scuti again?
Last time I checked, UY Scuti has a size of 825 SR on here. When was it moved back up to 1708? I heard it was unreliable. Should we lower it back down again? Atlantlc27Lol (talk) 19:16, 7 November 2023 (UTC)


 * I was thinking of removing it, NML Cyg and some other stars that have effective temperatures substantially lower than the Hayashi line, which could indicate that they are not in hydrostatic equilibrium which would be very unusual if it was permanent. UY Sct has a radius that uses an old distance anyway and a noiseless photogeometric distance based on Gaia EDR3 data, which is also less uncertain and results in a radius of although that would not be added to the list since it fails WP:SYNTHESIS. Wing (2009)'s "Biggest Stars of All" also states that it would be hard to believe that a star like NML Cyg could be stuck in a non-equilibrium state for more than 40 years. Dorn-Wallenstein et al. (2023) states that the Hayashi line is 3650 K, however it also mentions two papers that put the limit at 3450 K for the Large Magellanic Cloud, which is more consistent with stars like WOH G64. Wing (2009) states the Hayashi line to be at around 3550 K, which is also consistent with good observations.   SpaceImplorer ExplorerImplorer   19:49, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Well the temperaature of IRC -10414 (3110 - 3300 K) is also below the Hayashi limit and it's a M7 RSG too (NML Cygni is a M6I star). Diamantinasaurus (talk) 20:21, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
 * NML Cyg’s effective temperature of 3250 K is a direct assumption from its spectral type, where the measured Teff comes from a source in 1980 that purely uses old interferometry and fluxes for some giant stars. The effective temperature used in the 2012 paper is extremely uncertain anyway and the luminosity leads to a really uncertain radius, and, again, Wing (2009)’s “The Biggest Stars of All” mentions that it would be hard to believe that NML Cyg could remain in non-equilibrium for over 40 years.  SpaceImplorer ExplorerImplorer   07:21, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Such a low effective temperature would actually be unlikely or at least very unusual, since the mass-loss rate would be much higher than what is observed. (see Gvaramadze et al. (2014) on page 11) An effective temperature of 3700 K was estimated in Levesque et al. (2005), which is more consistent with the observed mass-loss, however it is inconsistent with its spectral type.  SpaceImplorer ExplorerImplorer   07:38, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
 * An important thing to note is that the radius estimate (1,708) is partly circular. The distance comes from a very old source which assumes a distance based on an assumed absolute magnitude based solely on the luminosity class. The newer paper then re-determines a luminosity based on that distance, rather than using the original value. The other stars with angular diameter estimates have estimated distances from much more direct and accurate methods like masers and association membership, so they should be kept, but UY Scuti should likely not be. VY Canis Majoris  (talk) 20:32, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
 * The 1970 paper estimates that the distance to RW Cep is 1.8 kpc, where in reality it is around 3.4 kpc Diamantinasaurus (talk) 20:36, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
 * no we cant remove uy scuti from being the biggest can you add it? 2601:2C6:580:EEB0:7C30:9C59:994:7CD6 (talk) 23:21, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Just because you don’t like it being off the list doesn’t mean it should be added back.  SpaceImplorer ExplorerImplorer   09:50, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
 * you don't want it being off the list doesn't mean it should be re-added. uy scuti is back on the list recently but with a lower radius based on effective temperature,... Hoanghao314159 (talk) 12:42, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
 * This should be archived, its back on the list with a better radius. Atlantlc27Lol (talk) 01:36, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 10 May 2024

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. (non-admin closure) Safari Scribe Edits! Talk! 04:39, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

List of largest stars → List of largest known stars – This page was recently moved unilaterally, without discussion. Its basis was an 8-year discussion, which is currently obsolete. The page was moved to "list of largest known stars" on 2021-09-30 by with the following reason: "We don't know the exact largest stars in the entire universe, the list only consists of known large stars.", and he's right, we don't know all the stars in the Universe, the current title is more accurate. InTheAstronomy32 (talk) 21:09, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

Comment: Since all votes until now were 'oppose' (very unfortunately), i will make arguments based on the article titles policy: Most reliable sources describe the topic as "largest known stars, largest stars known to mankind", etc, or at least emphasize the fact that it's just the largest known stars. See some links:          , hence the title easily passes WP:COMMONAME. It has also a good level of precision, suficient to unambigously define its scope, which is the largest known stars. WP:TITLECHANGES also says that a stable name should not be moved without a good reason, which is the case here. InTheAstronomy32 (talk) 18:39, 16 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Oppose: this looks like a conflict between precision and concision, per WP:CRITERIA. Since an article titled "list of largest unknown stars" would be empty, I think the 'known' here is redundant wording. It should remain as "List of largest stars". Praemonitus (talk) 22:22, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I really can't undertand this argument. In my opinion, putting the word "known" in the title is not redundant, for one simple reason: We don't know all the stars in the universe, in fact we only know a tiny fraction of them, so we can't just put "List of largest Stars" in the title, as that would be incorrect. WOH G64 is the biggest star on the list, by putting the title "List of largest stars" we would be mistakenly attributing that it is the biggest star. There may be billions of stars bigger than it, but we simply don't know. In my opinion, the proposed title is more informative, accurate and close to the truth. InTheAstronomy32 (talk) 00:13, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Your argument is beside the point: it's the type of commentary that can be discussed in the Overview section. Hence the article in total will still cover all of the largest stars in the universe. This makes the 'known' redundant. Praemonitus (talk) 13:36, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Most people still don't read the "overview" section, so putting "known" in the title is important. InTheAstronomy32 (talk) 10:55, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose I agree with Amakuru and Praemonitus here, "known" in the title is redundant. See also this old discussion linked in Amakuru's edit summary. SevenSpheres (talk) 22:25, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose unless hardcore verificationism is policy let's avoid slapping 'known' things when we are clearly not going to talk about stuff that is not known—blindlynx 23:17, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose. The above votes sum up the situation accurately. Known isn't necessary because it's self-evident. I'm not sure why the prior discussion is deemed "obsolete", it formed the basis for the removal of known across the board and had a decent turnout. The reversal was unilateral and undiscussed. &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 23:22, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
 * "Known isn't necessary because it's self-evident." Not really. This would be self-evident in lists where all objects that can be included the list are already known. For example, the list of largest cities does not need to be renamed to "list of largest known cities", because all the cities are already known, making the use of "known" redundant, and the title is already accurate enough for the article. The same applies to the List of Solar System objects by size, although there are unknown Solar System objects, the title is already precise enough and self-evident. The same does not apply to lists of astronomical extremes, for reasons shown in the answer to Praemonitus. InTheAstronomy32 (talk) 00:53, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
 * There is no way to talk about things that we don't know about in principle. It's self evident that we can't talk about undiscovered things—blindlynx 13:09, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
 * This argument still appears meaningless to me. InTheAstronomy32 (talk) 10:46, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
 * See for example Russell's teapot. If we have a list of objects in space, we can't list the objects we don't know in that might be in space. Primefac (talk) 11:28, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
 * The reversal was unilateral and undiscussed. but it was unopposed by more than 2 years and nobody reverted it. At this time, the page was constantly patrolled by many users, including an administrator and a page mover, which could move the page whenever they wanted. Furthermore, "List of largest known stars" used to be the title for nine years, from 2005 to 2016. InTheAstronomy32 (talk) 21:24, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose per consistency with similar lists that are based on our best current knowledge including List of oldest trees, List of first human settlements, List of hottest exoplanets, List of most massive black holes, List of largest galaxies, etc. Dekimasu よ! 08:36, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Oppose per Principle of Some Astonishment. Walsh90210 (talk) 01:29, 18 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Undecided leaning Oppose on what title should be (I can see a stronger case for this than some other objects but still pretty much agree on the above. if you agree with the shorter title, why are you nominating this for discussion here? I am confused as it appears to have been reverted to shorter version anyway....? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 19:20, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Add a list of the largest stars by angular size
I am planning to add a section about the largest stars by angular size, because this would be the best article to include this information. The draft version is at User:InTheAstronomy32/Largest stars by angular diameter. InTheAstronomy32 (talk) 10:47, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Remove IRAS 04509-6922?
IRAS 04509-6922's radius varied too much (1027-2249). Should we remove the star or just that size? Hoanghao314159 (talk) 13:46, 13 June 2024 (UTC)


 * The dusty region hasn't been modelled properly yet, which has sensitivity to extreme and inaccurate luminosities and effective temperatures.  SpaceImplorer ExplorerImplorer   07:03, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
 * There is a much better estimate of 1,300 solar radii. 21 Andromedae (talk) 20:58, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

HIP 7496
this paper gives 920 solar radii for this star, altough it is a bit outdated (from 2000). Maybe we could add this star? 21 Andromedae (talk) 18:29, 9 July 2024 (UTC)


 * ... probably not, this more recent paper gives just 103 solar radii. 21 Andromedae (talk) 18:34, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
 * It has an uncertainty of   SpaceImplorer ExplorerImplorer   08:29, 11 July 2024 (UTC)