Ronald William “Josh” Kirby (27 November 1928 – 23 October 2001) was a British commercial artist. Over a career spanning 60 years, he was the artist for the covers of many science fiction books including Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels.
With a radius between 640 and 764 times that of the Sun, if it [Betelgeuse] were at the center of our Solar System, its surface would lie beyond the asteroid belt and it would engulf the orbits of Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars.