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supergiant
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Supergiants are among the most massive and most luminous stars. Supergiant stars occupy the top region of the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram, with absolute visual magnitudes between about −3 and −8. The temperatures of supergiant stars range from about 3,400 K to over 20,000 K.
Supergiants are among the most massive and luminous stars in the universe, occupying the top region of the star classification chart used by astronomers. These extreme stars have temperatures ranging from about 3,400 K to over 20,000 K and are characterized by their exceptional brightness, making them important reference points for understanding stellar evolution and the life cycles of the most powerful stars.
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Encyclopedic overview
16 sectionsContents
- Definition
- Spectral luminosity class
- Evolutionary supergiants
- Categorisation of evolved stars
- Properties
- Surface gravity
- Temperature
- Luminosity
- Variability
- Chemical abundances
- Evolution
- Supernova progenitors
- Well-known examples
- See also
- References
- External links
Supergiants are among the most massive and most luminous stars. Supergiant stars occupy the top region of the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram, with absolute visual magnitudes between about −3 and −8. The temperatures of supergiant stars range from about 3,400 K to over 20,000 K.
==Definition== The title supergiant, as applied to a star, does not have a single concrete definition. The term giant star was first coined by Ejnar Hertzsprung when it became apparent that the majority of stars fell into two distinct regions of the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram. One region contained larger and more luminous stars of spectral types A to M, which received the name giant. Subsequently, as they lacked any measurable parallax, it became apparent that some of these stars were significantly larger and more luminous than the bulk, and the term super-giant arose, quickly adopted as supergiant.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “supergiant” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.