Question

How big are quasars in comparison to the sun?

Answer 1

A quasar is about the size of the solar system.

Explanation:

Although quasars are very massive and output huge amounts of energy, they are quite small.

A quasar is powered by a supermassive black hoe at the centre of a galaxy. The supermassive black hole at the centre of our Milky Way galaxy is thought to have a diameter of about `3*10^9km` and would fit into the orbit of the planet Uranus.

Quasars also have the accretion disc of matter falling into the supermassive black whole which generate the energy. So, a quasar would typically be the size of the solar system.

The Sun has a diameter of `696,000km`, so a quasar would be in the order of 4,000 times the diameter of the Sun. The mass of the quasar however would be millions of times greater than that of the Sun.