All that is left of the stars you see when looking up at the stars are stars that are far away from Earth, and most of them are larger and brighter than the sun.
Outside the Solar System, the closest star to Earth is Proxima Centauri, which is 4.22 light-years away from Earth, although it is very close, but because it is much smaller than Earth itself, it is only a faint red dwarf, so we can hardly see it with the naked eye, and Sirius, which is 8.6 light-years away from Earth, is the brightest star in the night sky, and its apparent magnitude reaches -1.47. Sirius doesn't look bright because it's really big and bright, in fact Sirius has a radius of only 1.711 times that of the Sun, and the reason it looks so shiny is because it's close enough to Earth.
The largest known star in the universe is BAT99-98 in the Great Magellanic Galaxy, which has a mass of 226 times the mass of the Sun.
Such a massive star, the internal fusion reaction is very violent, the release of light and heat is also extremely large, but its brightness in the night sky is not at all numbered, the reason is that it is too far away from us. BAT99-98 is about 165,000 light-years away from Earth, so its apparent magnitude is only 13.50, and basically the apparent magnitude above 6 cannot be directly observed with the naked eye. Coincidentally, R136a1, the second known star also located in the Greater Magellanic Galaxy, cannot be directly seen with the naked eye, and although its mass reaches 215 times that of the Sun, its apparent magnitude is only 12.23. So, are there any massive stars in the night sky that we are more familiar with that can be seen directly with the naked eye? Yes.
For an astronomy enthusiast, the "Great Winter Triangle" is definitely not unfamiliar.
On winter nights, a very regular equilateral triangle appears on the equator of the celestial sphere, which is composed of Sirius, Minamikawa III, and Betelgeuse, which we call the "Winter Triangle". The Winter Triangle is a beautiful astronomical landscape, but this landscape will disappear at some point in the future, because Betelgeuse is already on the verge of exploding, and may have exploded. Also known as the "α Orion", Betelgeuse is a red supergiant star in the constellation of Orion, which is about 640 light-years away from Earth and has a volume of 7 to 1.6 billion times that of the Sun. Why is there such a huge discrepancy in the description of the volume of Betelgeuse? Because Betelgeuse looks extremely unstable.
Astronomers observed and studied Betelgeuse as early as the last century, but Betelgeuse has always been bright and dark, and the amplitude of light variation displayed is very large, so it is difficult to determine its specific distance from the Earth, and thus it is difficult to determine its mass and volume, but it can be determined that its volume is as small as 700 million times the volume of the Sun.
The reason why Betelgeuse is so unstable is because it has reached the end of its life. Betelgeuse is much larger than the Sun, which also means that it has a much shorter lifespan than the Sun, because the life of a star is inversely proportional to its own mass, and the greater the mass, the more intense the fusion reaction, the faster the fuel consumption, and the faster life will end. And a massive star like Betelgeuse will eventually usher in a brilliant curtain: a supernova explosion.
With the exhaustion of fuel, the fusion of stars will continue to push towards heavier elements, when reaching the iron element, the fusion reaction from the release of energy to the absorption of energy, the outward radiation expansion pressure completely disappears, the star collapses sharply to the center under its own gravitational pull, a large amount of material smashes into the core, triggering a strong rebound, massive energy is released in an instant, a large amount of stellar material is thrown into the universe at a very high speed, which is a supernova explosion.
The energy released by the supernova explosion is too great to affect the surrounding cosmic celestial bodies, and the influence of these celestial bodies is closely related to their distance. So when will Betelgeuse explode? Some scientists believe that Betelgeuse has only just entered the helium fusion stage, so it is still 100,000 years away from the supernova explosion, and some scientists believe that Betelgeuse has entered the carbon fusion stage, so it has less than a thousand years to leave.
It is worth noting that The distance between Betelgeuse and Earth is about 640 light-years, so it is not excluded that Betelgeuse has exploded, because the scene of its explosion will take more than 600 years to reach Earth.
So will the explosion of Betelgeuse have an impact on Earth? The supernova explosion is indeed an extremely intense celestial activity, and can also affect a very large range of cosmic regions, but its scope of influence is limited after all. Generally speaking, as long as it is more than 50 light years away from the object where the supernova explosion occurred, it will not be affected in any way, so The Earth is safe. Because of this, every astronomy enthusiast would like Betelgeuse to explode a little earlier, because such a close supernova explosion is a cosmic wonder that can be encountered but not sought.