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supergiant star

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supergiant star: see red giant red giant, star that is relatively cool but very luminous because of its great size. All normal stars are expected to pass eventually through a red-giant phase as a consequence of stellar evolution.
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supergiant star

Star of very great natural luminosity and relatively enormous size, typically several magnitudes brighter and several times larger than a giant star. Like other classes of stars, they are distinguished in practice by examination of certain lines in their spectra (see spectroscopy). A supergiant may have a diameter several hundred times that of the Sun and a luminosity nearly a million times as great. Supergiants live probably only a few million years, an extremely short life for a star.

supergiant star [¦sü·pər′gī·ənt ′stär]
(astronomy)
A member of the family containing the intrinsically brightest stars, populating the top of the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram; supergiant stars occur at all temperatures from 30,000 to 3000 K and have luminosities from 104to 106times that of the sun; the star Betelgeuse is an example.
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If this is indeed the orbital period of a stellar companion, then it's likely a giant or supergiant star between three and five times the Sun's mass," Strohmayer said.
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Several very bright, pale blue supergiant stars, a solitary ruby-red supergiant and a variety of other brilliantly colored stars are visible in the Hubble image, as well as many much fainter ones.
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Betelgeuse, considered a supergiant star, is so large that it would reach to Jupiter's orbit in our solar system.
Giant star Betelgeuse mysteriously shrinking: study by AFP / AFP Global Edition
 
 
 
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