Blog
Save
Email
Print
ShareRed supergiants are supergiant stars of spectral type K-M and a luminosity class of I.
They are the largest stars in the universe in terms of physical size, although they are not the most massive.
Stars with more than about 10 solar masses, after burning their hydrogen become red supergiants during their helium-burning phase.
These stars have very cool surface temperatures (3500-4500 K), and enormous radii.
The four largest known red supergiants in the Galaxy are Mu Cephei, KW Sagitarii, V354 Cephei, and KY Cygni, which all have radii about 1500 times that of the sun (about 7 astronomical units, or 7 times as far as the Earth is from the sun).
The radius of most red giants is between 200 and 800 times that of the sun, which is still enough to reach from the sun to Earth and beyond.
For more information about the topic Red supergiant star, read the full article at Wikipedia.org, or see the following related articles:
Blue supergiant star — Blue supergiants are supergiant stars (class I) of spectral type O. They are extremely hot and bright, with surface temperatures of between 20,000 - ... > read more
Red giant — A red giant is a large non-main sequence star of stellar classification K or M; so-named because of the reddish appearance of the cooler giant stars. ... > read more
Stellar classification — In astronomy, stellar classification is a classification of stars based initially on photospheric temperature and its associated spectral ... > read more
Stellar evolution — In astronomy, stellar evolution is the sequence of changes that a star undergoes during its lifetime; the hundreds of thousands, millions or billions ... > read more
Star cluster — Star clusters are groups of stars which are gravitationally bound. Two distinct types of star cluster can be distinguished: globular clusters are ... > read more
Cepheid variable — A Cepheid variable or Cepheid is a member of a particular class of variable stars, notable for a fairly tight correlation between their period of ... > read more
Brown dwarf — Brown dwarfs were originally called black dwarfs, a classification for dark substellar objects floating freely in space which were too low in mass to ... > read more
Stellar nucleosynthesis — Stellar nucleosynthesis is the collective term for the nuclear reactions taking place in stars to build the nuclei of the heavier elements. The ... > read moreRecommend this page on Facebook, Twitter,
and Google +1:
Other bookmarking and sharing tools:
more 