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Supergiant stars occupy the top region of the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram with absolute visual magnitudes between about −3 and −8. The temperature range of ...
Higher-mass stars leave the main sequence to become blue giants, then bright blue giants, and then blue supergiants, before expanding into red supergiants, although at the very highest masses the giant stage is so brief and narrow that it can hardly be distinguished from a blue supergiant.
Rigel and the IC 2118 nebula which it illuminates.. It was once believed that blue supergiants originated from a "feeding" with the interstellar medium when stars passed through interstellar dust clouds, [11] [8] although the current consensus is that blue supergiants are evolved high-mass stars, larger and more luminous than main-sequence stars.
Some of the brightest stars in the night sky, such as Rigel and Antares, are in the list. While supergiants are typically defined as stars with luminosity classes Ia, Iab or Ib, other definitions exist, such as those based on stellar evolution. [1] Therefore, stars with other luminosity classes can sometimes be considered supergiants.
The effective temperature of the star is of 3,980 K, [7] which gives it a orange hue typical of K-type stars. [ 13 ] Based on the assumption that it is a supergiant , 145 CMa has been given a large radius of 315 R ☉ and a luminosity of 23,660 L ☉ . [ 7 ]
Supergiants are stars of luminosity class I. Luminosity class Ib is for normal supergiants; Luminosity class Ia is for bright supergiants;
The "red" part of "red supergiant" refers to the cool temperature. Red supergiants are the coolest supergiants, M-type, and at least some K-type stars although there is no precise cutoff. K-type supergiants are uncommon compared to M-type because they are a short-lived transition stage and somewhat unstable.
In 1956, the astronomers Feast and Thackeray used the term super-supergiant (later changed into hypergiant) for stars with an absolute magnitude brighter than M V = −7 (M Bol will be larger for very cool and very hot stars, for example at least −9.7 for a B0 hypergiant).