Hangman!

*sniffle*

Meanie....

Oh, you know I still love ya, Wraith.

Okay, I don't want to be late for work (and I wish I could have been on here earlier, but I was draining and winterizing the hot tub, laying down more grass seed, cleaning out the henhouse and various other chores and improvements). So here's a rather tough one to tide y'all over for a while.








Star or Sun (3 words, 14 letters):

_ _____ _ _ _ _____ _ _ _ _ _ _

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

U

The Sun God laughs at your feeble attempt to depose him!

(Hmm...come to think of it, are variable star designations considered words? Maybe I should clarify the clue a bit. All the same, I hope you peeps never fell asleep in Astronomy class....)







╩═════

Star or Sun (1 variable star designation + 2 words, 14 letters):

_ _____ _ _ _ _____ _ _ _ _ _ _

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

A

You may have found a chink in the Sun God's golden armor, yet still he scoffs at your petty thrusts and flailings.







╩═════

Star or Sun (1 variable star designation + 2 words, 14 letters):

_ _____ A _ _ _____ A _ _ _ _ _

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

Taljor: 2
Wraith: 0

M

You are inviting the Sun God's baleful gaze, and it is great and terrible.







╩═════

Star or Sun (1 variable star designation + 2 words, 14 letters):

_ _____ A _ _ ____M A _ _ _ _ _

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

Taljor: 2
Wraith: 1

I

The Sun God grows annoyed with your continued irreverence.







╩═════

Star or Sun (1 variable star designation + 2 words, 14 letters):

_ _____ A _ I ____M A _ _ _ I _

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

Taljor: 4
Wraith: 1

N

Your persistent strikes against the Sun God shall gain you nothing! Your defeat is inevitable, mortals.







╩═════

Star or Sun (1 variable star designation + 2 words, 14 letters):

_ _____ A N I ____M A _ _ _ I _

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

Taljor: 4
Wraith: 2


(Also, Dad's been sick with a nasty flu bug and I've been taking care of him for the past day or so. How anyone can sleep in a recliner for over 24 hours, I'll never know. Sorry for idling. )

S

You are angering the Sun God.







╩═════

Star or Sun (1 variable star designation + 2 words, 14 letters):

_ _____ A N I S___M A _ _ _ I S

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

Taljor: 6
Wraith: 2

H

...and for angering him, the Sun God demands the sacrifice of one man, to be executed by hanging.

The Sun God would like to thank you for furthering mankind's attempt to placate him...he would like to thank you, if gratitude were not an alien notion to him.


║
║
║
║
║
╩═════

Star or Sun (1 variable star designation + 2 words, 14 letters):

_ _____ A N I S___M A _ _ _ I S

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

Taljor: 6
Wraith: 2


(Also, I have a play rehearsal in eight hours. But until then and after that, yay! Free time for Ainsley! )

T

J

While Taljor distracts the Sun God by nailing a crossbeam to the gallows, Wraith sprints in to stab him in the ankle.

Now that's teamwork!


╔═══╤
║
║
║
║
║
╩═════

Star or Sun (1 variable star designation + 2 words, 14 letters):

_ _____ A N I S___M A J _ _ I S

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

Taljor: 6
Wraith: 3


(And by "him" I mean the Sun God, because stabbing Tal in the ankle wouldn't be very neighborly. And it wouldn't stop the Sun God from scorching the planet, either. )

R

The Sun God tires of your defiance, and his wrath will be great and terrible if you persist!


╔═══╤
║
║
║
║
║
╩═════

Star or Sun (1 variable star designation + 2 words, 14 letters):

_ _____ A N I S___M A J _ R I S

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

Taljor: 7
Wraith: 3


(Has anyone seen Jaz, by the way? She should be in on this too. )

O

The great and mighty Sun God really, really wants his sacrificial hangman. He's not truly in the mood to burn the earth, yet you keep denying him his entirely reasonable request. Shame on you!


╔═══╤
║
║
║
║
║
╩═════

Star or Sun (1 variable star designation + 2 words, 14 letters):

_ _____ A N I S___M A J O R I S

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

Taljor: 7
Wraith: 4

taking a stab... VY CANIS MAJORIS

Oh. You read the Deviant Art page, didn't you? I knew that I shouldn't have mentioned that in Licoti's comment section....

But yes, there be the answer. VY Canis Majoris (or VY CMa, for short), located in the namesake constellation Canis Major, is a red hypergiant and presently the largest star in the known universe, a title formerly held by the likes of Antares, Mu Cephei and VV Cephei A before evolutions in parallax measuring and high-resolution imaging revealed that VY Canis Majoris is actually the largest star known, with a solar radius 1,800-2,100 times than that of our own Sun. Measuring VY Canis Majoris has for long been difficult due to star's great distance from our solar system (4,900 lightyears), hence the long delay in handing that "Biggest Sun in the Known Universe" crown to its rightful bearer, VY Canis Majoris, who will probably keep that crown until the Hubble finds an even bigger star, if indeed one exists.

So VY CMa is really, really big. Or, to put it in perspective:




(Sorry about having to make the Sun 1 pixel in size there, but scaling the the Sun to double or triple size in Paint Shop Pro would have demanded that I double or triple VY Canis Majoris' size as well. And you can imagine how that would have turned out....)

And VY Canis Majoris' radius is about 850,000,000 miles, or 9.14 Astronomical Units. Jupiter's orbit has a mean radius of 5.2 AU and Saturn's orbit has a mean radius of 9.55 AU, so...





(I swear to Sailor Jupiter, I am never using the Nasalization font ever again. It's hideous. And yes, I spent much of my work scaling and pasting these pics together listening to the American version of the Sailor Moon theme over and over. Does that make me strange? )

But even though VY CMa is colossal compared to our own sun (at almost 1,000 times the Sun's diameter), VY CMa is estimated to be only 30 or 40 times as massive and is therefore actually less dense than the Sun. It seems to be that VY Canis Majoris is a very old star, having entered the red (hyper)giant stage near the end of a sun's life, and astronomers estimate that VY Canis Majoris will go supernova and die in less than 100,000 years...which in a star's eyes isn't very long at all.

(And considering how greatly stars explode and expand when they go supernova, you can bet that this star's supernova is going to be frickin' huge.)

So it looks like the Sun God must now trudge away in defeat, his gallows empty and his sacrificial offering denied. Pity the Sun God.

Back to you, Tal.