Orders of magnitude (one cubic gigametre and greater)

The following is a table of objects with volumes or capacities of one cubic gigametre or greater.

The Cat's Eye Nebula on left (about 3×10⁴⁶ m³) and the dark cloud Barnard 68 at top (about 6×10⁴⁶ m³) are of comparable volumes; the Stingray Nebula between them is smaller with a similar volume as the small yellow light-month radius sphere, about 2×10⁴⁵ m³.

The Bubble Nebula (NGC 7635) at left with about 520 cubic light years (4.4×10⁵⁰ m³) dwarfs the Dumbbell Nebula's 12 cubic light years (1×10⁴⁹ m³). (very approximate figures)

The globular cluster Messier 5 at upper left with about 2 million cubic light years (1.7×10⁵⁴ m³) dwarfs the much smaller Bubble Nebula at lower right.

volume (m^3)	example
1×10^27	one cubic gigametre
1.41×10^27	volume of the Sun
~1×10^30	volume of Alcyone, brightest star in the Pleiades[1]
~1.7×10^31	volume of Arcturus, brightest star in Boötes[2]
3.4×10^32	volume of Rigel the brightest star in Orion[3]
~5×10^32	volume of a red giant the same mass as the Sun
1.4×10^33	volume of γ Crucis, a red giant in Crux[4]
~1×10^34	volume of Deneb, a white supergiant in Cygnus[5]
6.4×10^34	volume of η Carinae, a luminous blue variable in Carina[6]
1.3×10^35	estimated volume of Antares[7]
1.5×10^35	volume of S Orionis, a Mira variable in Orion[8]
~2.75×10^35	volume of Betelgeuse
1×10^36	one cubic terametre
4×10^36	possible volume of µ Cephei (estimates vary)
8×10^36	estimated volume of VY Canis Majoris, a red hypergiant star[9]
3.9×10^38	volume of a sphere which would enclose the orbit of Neptune
6–10×10^39	possible volume of the Heliosphere inside the termination shock
1.1×10^41	daily increase in volume of the Cat's Eye Nebula[10]
4×10^43	annual increase in volume of the Cat's Eye Nebula[10][11]
1×10^45	one cubic petametre
~1.7×10^45	approximate volume of the Stingray Nebula[12]
~2.7×10^46	volume of the bright inner nebula of the Cat's Eye Nebula[10]
5.5×10^46	the volume of a Bok globule like Barnard 68[13][14]
4.4×10^47	the volume of a Bok globule one light year across[13][14]
8.47×10^47	one cubic light-year
~1.7×10^48	volume of the Oort Cloud, assuming a radius of 50000 AU
~1.6×10^49	volume of the Dumbbell Nebula
2.94×10^49	one cubic parsec
4.4×10^50	approximate volume of the Bubble Nebula (NGC 7635) (assuming a radius of 5 light years, sources differ)[15][16][17]
1×10^54	one cubic exametre
3×10^55	estimated volume of a small dwarf galaxy like NGC 1705
3.3×10^55	estimated volume of the Local Bubble, assuming a radius of 100 parsecs (~39 million cubic light years)
3×10^58	estimated volume of a dwarf galaxy like the Large Magellanic Cloud
2.94×10^58	one cubic kiloparsec
~3.3×10^61	volume of a galaxy like the Milky Way
1×10^63	one cubic zettametre—approximate volume of whole Milky Way including Globes
~5×10^68	volume of the Local Group
6.7×10^71	volume of the Gemini Void
1×10^27	one cubic yottametre
1.2×10^72	volume of the Local Void (about 1.4×10^24 cubic light years)[18]
3.5×10^72	volume of the Virgo Supercluster[19]
1×10^73	volume of the Sculptor Void (about 1.1×10^25 cubic light years)[18]
2×10^73	least volume of the Southern Local Supervoid (about 2.2×10^25 cubic light years)[20]
3.4×10^80	volume of the Observable Universe
7.1×10^81	lower bound on the volume of the universe based on analysis of WMAP[21]
6.7×10^83	lower bound on the volume of the entire universe
~1×10^113	rough upper bound on the physical size of the present universe, a result of the maximum number of Hubble volumes.[22]
← one cubic megametre to one cubic gigametre

References

1. Kaler, Jim, Alcyone, retrieved 18 November 2008: "radius nearly 10 solar"
2. Mozurkewich, David; Armstrong, J. Thomas; Hindsley, Robert B.; Quirrenbach, Andreas; Hummel, Christian A.; Hutter, Donald J.; Johnston, Kenneth J.; Hajian, Arsen R.; Elias II, Nicholas M.; Buscher, David F.; and Simon, Richard S.; Angular diameters of stars from the Mark III optical interferometer, Astronomical Journal, 126, 2502-2520 (2003)
3. Its radius is 70 times the Sun's
4. Its radius is 113 times the Sun's.
5. Its radius is 203 times the Sun's.
6. Its radius is about 240 times the Sun's.
7. VizeR page for Antares, retrieved 18 November 2009: "5.1e+02 solRad"
8. VizeR page for S Orionis, retrieved 18 November 2009: "5.3e+02 solRad"
9. Humphreys, Roberta M.; VY Canis Majoris: The Astrophysical Basis of its Luminosity, arxiv.org, 13 October 2006, page 3, retrieved 18 November 2009: "1800 to 2100 R⊙"
10. ⁴⁄₃πr³; core radius r = distance times sin(¹⁄₂ angular diameter) = 0.2 light year. Distance = 3.3 ± 0.9 kly; angular diameter = 20 arcseconds; expands 10 milliarcseconds per year.(Reed et al. 1999)
11. Reed, Darren S.; Balick, Bruce; Hajian, Arsen R.; Klayton, Tracy L.; Giovanardi, Stefano; Casertano, Stefano; Panagia, Nino; Terzian, Yervant (1999). "Hubble Space Telescope Measurements of the Expansion of NGC 6543: Parallax Distance and Nebular Evolution". Astronomical Journal 118 (5): 2430–2441. arXiv:astro-ph/9907313. Bibcode:1999AJ....118.2430R. doi:10.1086/301091.
12. r = 0.08 light years; ⁴⁄₃πr³ = 1.86×10⁴⁵ m³
13. Michael Szpir (May–June 2001). "Bart Bok's Black Blobs". American Scientist. Archived from the original on 29 June 2003. Retrieved 19 November 2008. Bok globules such as Barnard 68 are only about half a light-year across and weigh in at about two solar masses
14. their size varies: a globule one quarter light year in radius has 5.5×10⁴⁶ m³, one a half light year in radius has 4.4×10⁴⁷ m³, one a light year in radius has 3.5×10⁴⁸ m³
15. APOD 2006
16. Hubble Site, 2000. An Expanding Bubble in Space. "diameter of 6 light-years".
17. APOD (18 October 2006), Astronomy Picture of the Day: NGC 7635: The Bubble, NASA
18. An Atlas of the Universe. The Nearest Superclusters. Retrieved 19 November 2008
19. assuming it is a sphere of 100 million light year radius
20. Einasto, M (1994-07-15), "The Structure of the Universe Traced by Rich Clusters of Galaxies", Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 269: 301–322, Bibcode:1994MNRAS.269..301E, doi:10.1093/mnras/269.2.301
21. http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0605709v2 How Many Universes Do There Need To Be?
22. http://arxiv.org/pdf/1208.2924v1.pdf "On Cosmological Implications of Holographic Entropy Bound" p.4