 By comparison, this is our own Sun, and how it would appear when viewed from the same distance.
Red 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. Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (1148x779, 56 KB) Summary The red supergiant star, Betelgeuse, viewed from a distance of 8 AU. Image created with Celestia by Will Fox and released into the public domain. ...
Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (1148x779, 56 KB) Summary The red supergiant star, Betelgeuse, viewed from a distance of 8 AU. Image created with Celestia by Will Fox and released into the public domain. ...
Betelgeuse (Alpha (α) Orionis) is a semiregular variable star located 427 light-years away [1]. It is the second brightest star in the constellation Orion, and the tenth brightest star in the night sky. ...
The astronomical unit (AU or au or a. ...
Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (1148x780, 84 KB) Summary The Sun, viewed from a distance of 8 AU. Image created with Celestia by Will Fox and released into the public domain. ...
Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (1148x780, 84 KB) Summary The Sun, viewed from a distance of 8 AU. Image created with Celestia by Will Fox and released into the public domain. ...
The Sun is the star at the center of our solar system. ...
Supergiants are the most massive stars. ...
The Pleiades, an open cluster in the constellation of Taurus A star is a massive, compact body of plasma in outer space that is currently producing or has produced energy through nuclear fusion. ...
In astronomy, stellar classification is a classification of stars based initially on photospheric temperature and its associated spectral characteristics, and subsequenly refined in terms of other characteristics. ...
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 three largest known red supergiants in the Galaxy are KW Sagitarii, V354 Cephei, and KY Cygni. All have radii about 1500 times that of the sun, or about 7 astronomical units. Most red giants have their radii between 200 and 800 times that of the sun which is still enough to reach from the sun to Earth or Mars. In astronomy, the solar mass is a unit of mass used to express the mass of stars and larger objects such as galaxies. ...
These massively large stars are little more than "hot vacuums", having no distinct photosphere and simply "tailing off" into interstellar space. They have a slow, dense, stellar wind and if their core's nuclear reactions slow for any reason (such as transitioning between shell fuels) they may shrink into a blue supergiant. A blue supergiant has a fast but sparse stellar wind and causes the material already expelled from the red supergiant phase to compress into an expanding shell. See blue supergiant for further discussion. Rigel, viewed from a distance. ...
Rigel, viewed from a distance. ...
The red supergiant phase is relatively short, lasting only a few hundred thousand to a million or so years. The most massive of the red supergiants are thought to evolve to Wolf-Rayet stars, while lower mass red supergiants will likely end their lives as supernovae. Most stars are thought to swing back and forth between red and blue supergiants several times until they finally explode. Artists impression of a Wolf-Rayet star Wolf-Rayet stars (often referred to as WR stars) are evolved, hot, massive stars which have very strong stellar winds. ...
Betelgeuse and Antares are the best known examples of red supergiants. Betelgeuse (Alpha (α) Orionis) is a semiregular variable star located 427 light-years away [1]. It is the second brightest star in the constellation Orion, and the tenth brightest star in the night sky. ...
Antares (α Scorpii / Alpha Scorpii) is the brightest star in the constellation Scorpius and one of the brightest stars in the nighttime sky. ...
In fiction: The red sun around which the fictitous planet Krypton orbits in both Superman: The Movie and Superman Returns is also a red supergiant (as opposed to that of a red dwarf star in the comics) that undergoes a supernova explosion, causing Krypton's destruction by means of the shockwaves emitted by the dying star (the comics' Krypton was destroyed by the planet's unstable core). Krypton is a fictional planet in the DC Comics universe. ...
Christopher Reeve as the Man of Steel, Superman Superman, also known as Superman: The Movie, is a 1978 Warner Bros. ...
Superman Returns is a 2006 superhero film based on the fictional DC Comics character, Superman, the first Superman film in 19 years. ...
Red Dwarf is a British science fiction sitcom that ran for eight series, from 1988 to 1999. ...
Multiwavelength X-ray image of the remnant of Keplers Supernova, SN 1604. ...
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