Supergiant facts for kids

Rigel—a blue supergiant

VX Sagittarii, one of the Supergiant star.

Supergiants are some of the largest stars in the universe. They are larger than giant stars, and less luminous than hypergiants. They vary greatly in size. They tend to be situated towards the top of the Hertzsprung-Russel Diagram, which is a graph depicting star development. Some are only 50 million kilometers across, small enough to fit inside the orbit of Venus. Some are 2,700 million km across, as wide as the orbit of Neptune.

Examples

Blue

• Rigel
• Deneb

White, yellow

• Polaris
• Gamma Cygni
• Epsilon Aurigae

Orange

• Epsilon Pegasi

Red

• Antares
• Betelgeuse
• Mu Cephei
• VV Cephei A
• Stephenson 2-18 (Possibly a Hypergiant)

Images for kids

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  The four brightest stars in NGC 4755 are blue supergiant stars, with a red supergiant star at the centre. (ESO VLT)

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  The disc and atmosphere of Betelgeuse (ESO)

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  RS Puppis is a supergiant and Classical Cepheid variable.

See also

In Spanish: Supergigante para niños