The body's main road
If your blood vessels were roads, the aorta would be the giant highway. It is the biggest artery in your body. An artery is a tube that carries blood away from the heart.
In a grown-up, the aorta is about an inch wide where it leaves the heart. That is a little wider than a garden hose.
Every drop of oxygen-rich blood headed for your body travels through the aorta first.
The candy cane curve
The aorta starts at the bottom left room of your heart, the left ventricle. It goes up a little, then curves over and heads back down, just like the top of a candy cane. This curve is called the aortic arch.
After the arch, the aorta runs down along your backbone, through your chest and into your belly.
Down near your belly button, it splits into two big branches, one for each leg.
Branches everywhere
Like a tree trunk, the aorta grows branches. The very first ones feed the heart muscle itself.
Branches from the arch go up to your head, brain and arms. Branches lower down go to your stomach, liver, kidneys and intestines.
Those branches split into smaller and smaller tubes until blood can reach every cell in your body.
Stretchy and strong
Each time your heart squeezes, a big push of blood shoots into the aorta. Its stretchy walls bulge out a little, then spring back.
That spring-back keeps blood moving smoothly between heartbeats, a bit like a balloon slowly letting out its air.
A door at the start of the aorta, the aortic valve, snaps shut after each squeeze so blood cannot slide back into the heart.