Supergiant facts for kids

Rigel—a blue supergiant, much bigger than our Sun.

VX Sagittarii, a huge red supergiant star.

Supergiants are some of the biggest stars in the universe. They are even larger than giant stars but not quite as bright as hypergiants. Supergiants come in many different sizes. You can find them at the top of the Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram, which is a special chart that shows how stars grow and change.

Some supergiants are about 50 million kilometers wide. That's small enough to fit inside the path of Venus as it goes around the Sun! Others are much, much larger, reaching up to 2,700 million kilometers across. This means they are as wide as the orbit of Neptune, one of the farthest planets from our Sun!

Types of Supergiant Stars

Supergiants can be different colors, which tells us about their temperature.

Blue Supergiants

Blue supergiants are very hot and bright.

• Rigel
• Deneb

White and Yellow Supergiants

These stars are a bit cooler than blue ones.

• Polaris (the North Star)
• Gamma Cygni
• Epsilon Aurigae

Orange Supergiants

Orange supergiants are cooler than white or yellow ones.

• Epsilon Pegasi

Red Supergiants

Red supergiants are the coolest and often the largest type of supergiant.

• Antares
• Betelgeuse
• Mu Cephei
• VV Cephei A
• Stephenson 2-18 (This one might even be a hypergiant, which is even bigger!)

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 center. (ESO VLT)

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  A close-up view of the disc and atmosphere of Betelgeuse. (ESO)

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  RS Puppis is a supergiant star that changes its brightness over time.

See also

In Spanish: Supergigante para niños