The+Red+Supergiant

=**The red supergiant - 'A //Supergiant// load of information'**=

Below is an image from: [|**http://imgsrc.hubblesite.org/hu/db/images/hs-2005-02-e-web.jpg**]

The red supergiant is a star that is bigger and more massive than the red giant. Red supergiants usually have a diameter which would be several hundred times that of the Sun and they would weigh 10 times more than the Sun.

The red supergiants phase is very short lived, they only last for a hundred to a million years before exploding into a supernova. Although red supergiants are very rare, clusters of them do exist in space. In 2006, a team led by Don Figer announced it had found a massive cluster of about 20,000 stars which included 14 red supergiants.

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In 2007 Ben Davies dicovered an ever larger cluster of stars in which 26 were red supergiants.

A red supergiant is made of several different layers. The outer layer is made up of red glowing hydrogen and helium is inactive. Below this, is a layer in which hydrogen is combined to helium. In the next layer helium is combined to carbon. This goes on until the core is made up of iron. The supergiant shines extremely bright and it can be seen some time, but only for a short time (several hundred thousand to million years!). In the end the phase in which the star combines with sulfur and silicon. This then is turned to iron which only lasts a few days to weeks. From iron no more energy can be made. The core cools down and collapses into a supernova which then explodes.

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The red supergiants are most commonly known as the largest stars in the universe in terms of size but they are not the most massive. The five largest known supergiants in the galaxy are Mu Cephei, KW Sagitarii, V354 Cephei, KY Cygni and the largest one of all... VY Canis Majoris. The first four all have radius of about 1500 times than that of the Sun. Most red supergiants have a radius which is 200-800 times that of the Sun. This distance is enough to reach to the Earth from the Sun and beyond!! Below is an image of Mu Cephei from: []

Below is an image of KW Sagitarii from: []

Below is an image of V354 Cephei from: []

Below is an image of KY Cygni from: []

VY Canis Majoris comes from the constellation Canis Major. It is known as a Red Hypergiant and the size is unbelievable!!! Here are some interesting facts: -If the Earth was the size of a golf ball, it would fit a million times into a 5 meter diameter ball as our Sun. But if it were Canis Majoris, the ball would be the size of Mt. Everest (in diameter!) Imagine putting golf balls into that! -The Hubble Space telescope discovered the VY Canis Majoris (paste image below) recently. But if they had found it, they would have been looking at it 5000 years back into the past! It seems very awkward, but if you think about it is all true as it is very far away. If we were to look at the sun, we would be looking at it 8 minutes into the past. If this theory is right, then Canis would probably be gone by now, and if were to explode into a supernova, we would not feel the explosion until...you guessed it. 5000 years. -If VY Canis Majoris were to replace our sun, the diameter would reach all the way up to Saturn. We would be engulfed in the middle. -With the Sun, it would take 1 million Earths to fill. With this red hypergiant, 7,000,000,000,000,000 (7 Quadrillion) Earths. -Light would take 14.5 seconds to travel around the sun. For this red hypergiant, 8 hours. Below is an amazing video about VY Canis Majoris found in: [] media type="youtube" key="LInBuEZmEos" height="344" width="425"

Red super giants are frequently very unstable and often have a strong stellar wind which blows away their hull.

Betelgeuse, also called Alpha Orionis, a red supergiant star shines with a low-temperature red colour. The gases that make up a red supergiant spread through so large a space that they may have a lower density than the air we breathe.


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