Largest in World & Biggest in Universe (General Knowledge)

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Largest in World:

Freestanding Structure
Finally, we go back to China, where the New Century Global Center opened for business in July 2013. In terms of its footprint, it is the largest man-made freestanding structure on the planet—almost 1.8 million square meters (19 million square feet) of space.
Taking three years to complete, the structure holds a 14-screen IMAX theater, an ice skating rink large enough to host sanctioned international competitions, a complete replica Mediterranean village, and (of course) a water park. The water park alone can accommodate 6,000 visitors at once, all of whom could easily be put up in the 2,000 available hotel rooms. But even these details don’t do justice to the immense scope of this facility—inside this building, you could fit 20 Sydney Opera Houses. Or over 300 football fields. Or Monaco.


Video Screen
Arena Corinthians in Sao Paulo, Brazil is a big building. Nearing completion at the time of this writing, it seats nearly 50,000 and will be the 11th-largest stadium in Brazil, when it plays host to several FIFA World Cup football matches in 2014. It’s a sharp, modern structure, but its facade is what landed it on this list—the entire front of the building is one giant video screen.
The screen will be capable of displaying images, video, and scoreboard information that will be visible to anyone even glancing in the stadium’s general direction. At 20 meters (65 ft) high and an astonishing 170 meters (560 ft) long, the screen is comprised of 34,000 LEDs and is easily the biggest video screen in the world.
To put that in perspective: Americans’ jaws dropped when the gigantic video monitors of Cowboys Stadium were unveiled to the world in 2009. But the Cowboys’ monitors fail to place in the top five largest video monitors in the world, and they’re not even one-third of the length of the gargantuan Arena Corinthians facade.


Power Station
For almost 20 years, the Chinese government forged ahead with the Three Gorges Dam project, despite concerns both at home and abroad about its potential ramifications. The threats to the surrounding environment and historical areas, to say nothing of the tens of thousands of locals displaced by the project, were all downplayed by officials throughout the dam’s construction. Only after its completion, at an estimated cost of $23 billion, did China admit that perhaps there were some valid environmental concerns.
And indeed: over one million residents of the Yangtze Valley were displaced by the project, and environmentalists are concerned that its lake has now become a dumping ground for industrial waste. Other environmental and logistic problems (like downstream ports being unable to accommodate ships after a 2011 drought) have also presented themselves in the wake of the dam’s completion.
But the numbers, in terms of power production and sheer scale, are mind-boggling. Standing at 2.4 kilometers (1.5 mi) in length and 180 meters (600 ft) in height, the dam enables oceangoing vessels to sail directly into mainland China for months out of the year and generates as much electricity as 18 nuclear power plants. Its capacity (22,500 megawatts) dwarfs that of it closest competitor, Itaipu Dam in South America (14,000 megawatts).


Zoo
When it comes to naming the world’s largest zoo, there’s more than one way to skin a . . . to calculate such a thing: by area, by the number of species on display, or a matrix involving both. The latter actually makes the most sense—at 12,000 acres, Red McCombs Wildlife in Texas could be considered the largest zoo by acreage, but only hosts about 20 species.
So while it has neither the largest acreage nor the highest number of individual species on display, travel website Touropia proclaimed Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, Nebraska, to be the largest in the world using the combined matrix. The 130-acre complex hosts 17,000 animals of over 960 different species and welcomes over 1.5 million visitors annually. The zoo is also home to the world’s largest indoor desert and has the biggest cat complex and largest geodesic dome in North America.


Salt Flats
The Salar de Uyuni (“Uyuni Salt Flat”) lies atop an extremely high plateau in southwestern Bolivia—at almost 3,600 meters (12,000 ft), the elevation is twice as high as mile-high Denver, Colorado. The salt is as thick as the air is thin (several meters thick, in most places), and the sheer surface area is astonishing—over 10,000 square kilometers (4,000 square miles).
The area, of course, produces a lot of salt. Also? Plenty of lithium. Enormous untapped reserves lie beneath the surface of the flats, comprising an estimated one-half to two-thirds of the world’s reserves. While it looks exceedingly desolate, the area is also home to one of the world’s largest pink flamingo habitats and about 80 other bird species.
The area has another amazing feature: for much of the year, a thin layer of water covers the surface. This produces the effect seen in the above photo. The world’s largest salt flat appears, during these seasonal times, to be the world’s largest mirror.


Waterfall
Inga Falls, along the Congo in Kinshasa, Zaire, is certainly not the tallest waterfall in the world. Heck, it’s not even close—its longest drop is a measly 21 meters (70 ft). (There are three waterfalls in the world with drops over 3,000 feet, to put that in perspective.) At four kilometers (2.5 mi) wide, it may not be the widest of falls, either—but it moves more water than any other waterfall on the planet. A lot more, as it turns out.
Most are familiar with the image of Niagara Falls, or perhaps Victoria Falls, as a standard for huge, terrifying falls that move (literal) tons of water. Victoria moves a lot: over 38,000 cubic feet per second. Niagara moves over twice that much: around 85,000. Inga Falls has an average discharge rate well over 10 times that of Niagara—over 900,000 cubic feet of water per second. Its closest competitor, Livingstone Falls (along the same river), discharges 25,000 cubic feet per second less than Inga; the next closest doesn’t even compare. Niagara and Victoria Falls come in 11th and 15th on that list, respectively.


Vacuum Chamber
Vacuum chambers are used to recreate the conditions of space: to see, for instance, how matter clumps together in the absence of gravity or to test components of space suits. There are some very large ones out there, but only one so large that it’s capable of performing environmental testing on a completely assembled spacecraft: the Plum Brook chamber in Sandusky, Ohio.
The chamber has been used for testing of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, a craft that NASA hopes will one day take astronauts back to the moon and maybe to Mars or distant asteroids. The Plum Brook chamber is 37 meters (122 ft) tall—easily sufficient to fit the spacecraft, at 23 meters (75 ft)—and an incredible 863,000 cubic feet. If you’d like to get a really good idea of the chamber’s immense size, though, just watch The Avengers again. The opening scene, in which Loki steals the Cosmic Cube, was filmed in it.


Cave
In 2009, a local farmer brought a group of British explorers to the entrance of a cave he had found years earlier in Vietnam’s Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park. They were excited at the prospect of finding a new cave system, but what they found was an underground river running along the floor of the single largest cave passage that has yet been found.
Take another look at the above image; in case you missed it, there’s a caver standing on the rock near the middle of the frame. Note that you cannot see the cavern’s ceiling above him. The cave is in a very remote region—previous cave-seeking expeditions to the area likely came very close to finding it, but the terrain is exceedingly difficult. At least five kilometers (three miles) long, the cavern boasts natural skylights (where weaker limestone has washed away) and spectacular ceilings nearly 300 meters (1,000 ft) high.


Outdoor Swimming Pool
Most hotel swimming pools are nothing special—they’re known for being small, crowded, and shallow. In an attempt to keep those adjectives out of their pool, designers of the outdoor swimming pool at San Alfonso Del Mar Resort in Chile seem to have overcompensated a bit.
In photos, it looks like some kind of weird, clear lagoon running the length of the resort’s main beach. Upon further inspection, yes, it is actually a swimming pool, and the sheer numbers associated with it boggle the mind. Covering 20 acres, the pool is over 900 meters (3,000 ft) long (the second-longest, in Morocco, is a measly 137 meters). Its deep end is 35 meters (115 ft)—also a world record—and it holds 66 million gallons of water. Also, it could engulf 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools, took five years and nearly $1 billion to build, and costs about $2 million yearly to maintain.
The pool uses an advanced suction and filtration system and virtually no chemicals, making it surprisingly environmentally friendly. Says biochemist Fernando Fischmann, whose company designed the pool: “As long as we have access to unlimited seawater, we can make it work, and it causes no damage to the ocean.”


Airplane
What you see in the image above is the AN-225 “Mriya,” a Ukrainian airliner, giving a piggyback ride to a Russian space shuttle. Yes, the world’s largest aircraft is capable not only of delivering hundreds of tons of cargo and complete, arena-sized concert stages, it’s the aircraft you will need if you’re transporting other aircraft—a Boeing 737 can fit inside its cargo hold.
Built in 1988, it was easily (by 50 percent) the largest plane in the world at the time—and remains so today (yes, there is only one of these). Inactive for about seven years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the massive aircraft was restored and put back into service in 2001, and it gets plenty of use, since it can transport cargo that literally no other plane on Earth can.
Construction began on a companion to “Mriya” (translated as “dream” or “inspiration”), but stalled, probably because it would require another $300 million to complete. It’s landing gear has an astounding 32 wheels, and it holds the world record for heaviest airlifted payload, almost 560 tons—far short of its maximum rated takeoff weight of 640 tons. Its wingspan is the length of a football field, and it’s almost that long from nose to tail as well.


Biggest in Universe:

The Cosmic Web
Most astronomers agree that the biggest thing in the universe is the cosmic web. It’s an endless scaffolding of galaxy clusters surrounded by dark matter and resembles a three dimensional spiderweb. Clusters of galaxies and dark matter make up “hubs” and filaments of galaxies connect these hubs producing a web like appearance.
How big is the web? If the Milky Way galaxy was a poppy seed, then the cosmic web of the observable universe would be the size of the Rose Bowl stadium.


The Huge Large Quasar Group
Discovered in January of 2013, the Huge-LGQ (Huge Large Quasar Group) is said to be the largest structure in the universe. The Huge Large Quasar GroupThe Huge-LQG is a collection of 73 confirmed quasars (a quasar is a very energetic galaxy). Astronomers discovered that the group of gravitationally bound quasars is so large that it would take over 4 billion years to traverse from end to end – while traveling at light speed.
It’s so big, that its very existence puts it at odds with Einstein’s Cosmological Principle. The cosmological principle says that, when looking at the universe from a large enough scale, it should look the exact same no matter where you are observing from, or where you look. The Huge-LGQ throws a wrench into that assumption. Researchers are understandably fascinated by the discovery and are eager to continue their investigations.


Shapley Super Cluster
The Shapley supercluster is a collection of galaxies some 400+ million light years long. Our own Milky Way galaxy is roughly 4,000 times smaller. The supercluster is so big, that our fastest spacecraft would spend trillions of years trying to cross it.
It is the most massive gravitationally bound object that we currently know of. Being gravitationally bound means that as the universe continues to expand, the gravity between the galaxies in this cluster are strong enough overcome that expansion, keeping them together forever.


The Bootes Void
Galaxies usually reside in clusters. Even our own Milky Way does. These clusters are lightly gravitationally bound and expanding along with space/time itself in groups.
But what about the areas where they don’t reside? Enter the Bootes Void. This region of ‘nothingness’ is a whopping 250 million light years across. That’s 2,500 milky way galaxies placed side by side. Voids are like holes in our universe, and the Bootes Void is the largest.


Lyman Alpha Blobs
These blobs are a very short lived phase of the birth of galaxy clusters. They are amorphous objects filled with gas that haven’t fully coalesced and are not bound or set gravitationally yet. As these blobs age, they will condense and eventually form giant collections of galaxies.
Lyman Alpha blobs resemble amoebas or jellyfish in shape. The largest one that we have spotted is 200 million light years wide and is located in the constellation Aquarius.


Radio Lobes
Radio lobes are powered by the accretion disk of supermassive black holes. These supermassive black holes can be found at the center of most galaxies. As material gets consumed by a black hole, some energy and matter is flung away at high speeds which occur at the poles of black holes.
These emissions are in the form of radio energy jets which can be seen with a radio telescope. The largest is located in the galaxy is 3C236 which is located in the constellation Leo Minor. Its jets span 40 million light years across. The jets from end to end are by far larger than any galaxy.


Largest Galaxy
A super galaxy is a galaxy that has merged with many others and they sit in the middle of galaxy clusters. The largest that we’ve discovered so far is the IC1101 super galaxy. It is 6 million light years across. Compare that to the Milky Way which is a mere 100 thousand light years across. IC1101 is a staggering 60 times larger than our own.


Largest Black Hole
Black holes are not physically large regions of space. But when you include their mass, they are among the top competitors for the largest things in the universe. And quasar OJ287 is the largest black hole we’ve spotted.Black Hole at the center of NGC1277 It’s estimated to be 18 billion times the mass of our sun and is a supermassive black hole located in the center of a galaxy. To put that in perspective, it’s an object larger than our entire solar system. Just how big can a black hole get? According to scientists, there is no theoretical upper limit.
Update: 11/28/2012 – Science never fails to keep impressing us with its newest discoveries. Researchers at the University of Texas, using the Hobby-Eberly Telescope, have discovered what they claim to be the largest supermassive black hole yet. The black hole, a whopping 17 billion solar masses, resides at the center of galaxy NGC 1277. That is so huge, it accounts for 14% of the entire galaxy’s mass. The event horizon is 11x the diameter of Neptune’s orbit around our sun – that’s a radius of over 300 AU.


Largest Star
VY Canis Majoris is the largest star (in diameter) that we know of. It’s in a class of star known as Red Hyper Giants. It’s 1,420 times the sun’s radius and would take the world’s fastest race car 2,600 years to circle it once. If you replaced our Sun with VY Canis Majoris, its surface would extend out beyond Saturn.
Update: In 2013, NML Cygni was verified as the largest known star. It’s a whopping 1,650 times our sun’s radius. That is so large; it would take a beam of light 6 hours and 40 minutes to circle it once.


Largest Planet
Located in the constellation Hercules, planet TRES4 is 70% larger than Jupiter in diameter, but has only 80% of Jupiter’s mass. Because of how close it orbits to its sun, it is thought that the intense heat expand the gasses that make up this planet, resulting in an almost ‘marshmallow-like’ density. It holds the title of the largest planet we’ve discovered so far.
Update: Science is never finished. Since this list was compiled, observations of an exoplanet called WASP-17b suggest that it is even bigger than TRES4. Despite its radius being twice that of Jupiter’s, it only has half the mass. This makes it even “fluffier” than TRES4.


Largest Asteroid
Ceres is the largest asteroid we’ve discovered so far. It contains 1/3rd the mass of the entire asteroid belt and is almost 600 miles in diameter. It’s about the size of California and is massive enough that its own gravity forces it into a spherical shape. It’s so large that it also has earned the title of ‘Dwarf Planet’. It’s the only object in the asteroid belt big enough to earn the designation.

Stay Blessed.