Gail Bigsby, age 11, of Victoria, British Columbia: for her question:

Is the sun the largest of all stars?

Seen from the earth, our glorious sun looks so large that no star can compare with it. But that is because we are only some 93 million miles away from it, All the stars are light years away, and. a light year is equal to roughly six million million miles. There are billions of them, and they are all part of the vast star system called the Galaxy.

The sun is but one star among this vast host. They come in various colors and various sizes. And Old Sol rates as a medium star in every respect, There are small white stars which are not much bigger than the earth. And if the sun were hollow, more than a million earth‑sized planets could rattle around in it. There are countless stars of more or less the same size as our suns And there are many stars much bigger than Old Sol. These are called the red giants and supergiant so One of these monsters could swallow up the sun together with half our Solar System.