SOLAR SYSTEM

Detailed explanation-1: -A red supergiant is an older phase of life for a large star between 8 and 40 solar units (or 8-40 times greater than the mass of the sun), in which hydrogen fuel in the core has been completely used up and helium fusion starts. Hydrogen does still fuse in the outer shell of the star.

Detailed explanation-2: -These new observations yield clues as to how red stars lose mass late in their lives as their nuclear fusion furnaces burn out, before exploding as supernovae.

Detailed explanation-3: -A red giant is a star that has exhausted the supply of hydrogen in its core and has begun thermonuclear fusion of hydrogen in a shell surrounding the core. They have radii tens to hundreds of times larger than that of the Sun. However, their outer envelope is lower in temperature, giving them a yellowish-orange hue.

Detailed explanation-4: -A star classed as a supergiant may have a diameter several hundred times that of the Sun and a luminosity nearly 1, 000, 000 times as great. Supergiants are tenuous stars, and their lifetimes are probably only a few million years, extremely short on the scale of stellar evolution.

Detailed explanation-5: -All red supergiants will exhaust the helium in their cores within one or two million years and then start to burn carbon. This continues with fusion of heavier elements until an iron core builds up, which then inevitably collapses to produce a supernova. A supernova is a powerful and luminous stellar explosion.