Table of Contents
What is the difference between red giants and red supergiants?
While a red giant might form when a star with the mass of our Sun runs out of fuel, a red supergiant occurs when a star with more than 10 solar masses begins this phase.
What is the difference between giants and supergiants?
Giant stars have radii up to a few hundred times the Sun and luminosities between 10 and a few thousand times that of the Sun. Stars still more luminous than giants are referred to as supergiants and hypergiants.
Are red supergiants hotter than red giants?
Because supergiants are so massive, the core temperature gets much hotter than in giants, so supergiants can fuse elements heavier than hydrogen and helium.
Are giants or supergiants bigger?
For example, a giant star like Arcturus is almost twenty times larger than the Sun, and the supergiant star Antares is more than 300 times larger than the Sun.
Are red giants cooler or hotter?
Despite its cooler surface temperature, the red giant is very luminous because of its huge surface area. When the Sun becomes a red giant, Mercury and Venus will be swallowed up by the Sun and perhaps the Earth will too.
What is the difference between supergiants and white dwarfs?
When a supergiant dies, it explodes as a supernova then shrinks to become a black hole. There is a group of very faint but hot stars in the bottom left of the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram. These are called white dwarfs and are so faint that none is visible to the naked eye.
What factor determines if a star becomes a red giant or a red supergiant?
The fusion of hydrogen to form helium changes the interior composition of a star, which in turn results in changes in its temperature, luminosity, and radius. Eventually, as stars age, they evolve away from the main sequence to become red giants or supergiants.
What are the characteristics of a supergiant?
A star classed as a supergiant may have a diameter several hundred times that of the Sun and a luminosity nearly 1,000,000 times as great. Supergiants are tenuous stars, and their lifetimes are probably only a few million years, extremely short on the scale of stellar evolution.
Why are supergiants so cool?
Cool supergiants apparently have enhanced helium and nitrogen at their surfaces due to convection of these fusion products to the surface during the main sequence of very massive stars. Helium is formed in the core and oxygen levels are reduced.
Is red giant bigger than red supergiant?
A red supergiant is simply a red giant but significantly bigger. They’re all formed when a main sequence star is unable to convert hydrogen to helium therefore, the natural process of nuclear fusion begins fusing heavier elements causing the star to exponentially increase in size.
Is a supergiant bigger than smaller than or about the same size as a red giant?
Red giants are larger luminous stars that have low mass. Red giants are in a late phase of the star cycle and have burned most on the hydrogen at the core. Blue supergiant stars are in between the size of red giants and blue hypergiants. They are very luminous and very hot.
Are red supergiants hot?
Red supergiants are cool and large. They have spectral types of K and M, hence surface temperatures below 4,100 K. They are typically several hundred to over a thousand times the radius of the Sun, although size is not the primary factor in a star being designated as a supergiant.
What are characteristics of giants and supergiants?
Characteristics. Typically, giant stars have radii between 10 and 100 solar radii and luminosities between 10 and 1,000 times that of the Sun. Stars still more luminous than giants are referred to as supergiants and hypergiants. A hot, luminous main sequence star may also be referred to as a giant.
Are supergiants hot?
Temperature. There are supergiant stars at all of the main spectral classes and across the whole range of temperatures from mid-M class stars at around 3,400 K to the hottest O class stars over 40,000 K. Supergiants are generally not found cooler than mid-M class.
What is the difference between a red giant and a red dwarf?
According to computer simulations, the minimum mass a red dwarf must have to eventually evolve into a red giant is 0.25 M ☉; less massive objects, as they age, would increase their surface temperatures and luminosities becoming blue dwarfs and finally white dwarfs.
Is a supergiant larger than smaller than or about the same size as a red giant?
What do red giants and red supergiants have in common?
The star becomes a red supergiant. In globular clusters these are called “asymptotic giant branch” (AGB) stars. Their structure is similar to that of red giants: they have degenerate core, extended convective envelope, and intermediate radiative zone.
Is there a difference between RGB stars and red supergiants?
I know RGB stars are burning hydrogen in a shell while the core is inert, so is a red supergiant a star which is also burning helium in the core (or something similar)? Show activity on this post. The short answer is no: there isn’t a agreed theoretical distinction between red giants and red supergiants.
What is the difference between a giant and a supergiant star?
The classification as a giant or supergiant star, however, is as much dependent upon the grouping of stars in the HR diagram as upon radial size. There are giant stars that are actually larger than some supergiant stars.
What is the difference between a red giant and a red supernova?
With a few exceptions, red supergiants go supernova, and red giants don’t. Red supergiants leave behind neutron stars or black holes; red giants leave behind white dwarfs. The dividing line between the two is a birth mass of about 8 solar masses.
What is the photosphere size of a red giant?
As most stars of this type are cooler and redder, the term red giant is often used. A similar comparison with an even brighter G star at M = –7.5 produces a size that is 310 times that of the Sun, or a radius of 220 million km, placing the photosphere at the orbit of Mars if this star were to replace the Sun in the solar system.