Ask the Chatbot Games & Quizzes History & Society Science & Tech Biographies Animals & Nature Geography & Travel Arts & Culture ProCon Money Videos
Supergiant star
Introduction References & Edit History Related Topics
Images & Videos
Learn about the different types of stars categorized according to their mass and temperature - red dwarfs, red giants, supergiants, white, and brown dwarf stars
Hertzsprung-Russell diagram of solar neighbourhood A Hertzsprung-Russell diagram plotting stars by absolute magnitude and spectral type, showing regions for main sequence stars, white dwarfs, giants, and supergiants, with color gradients from blue (hot and bright) to red (cool and dim). The Sun is marked along the main sequence.
Quizzes
1 July 2002: The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) satellite reveals a massive solar eruption more than 30 times the Earth's diameter. The eruption formed when a loop of a magnetic field over the surface of the Sun trapped hot gas.
Brightest Star in the Solar System
Nicolaus Copernicus. Nicolas Copernicus (1473-1543) Polish astronomer. In 1543 he published, forward proof of a Heliocentric (sun centered) universe. Coloured stipple engraving published London 1802. De revolutionibus orbium coelestium libri vi.
All About Astronomy
Quick Facts
Related Topics:
Giant star
See all related content
Britannica AI Icon
Adding us as a Preferred Source tells Google you trust our content, so our articles show up more often in your Google Search, Discover feed, and AI Overviews.
verifiedCite
While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions.
Select Citation Style
Feedback
Corrections? Updates? Omissions? Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login).
Thank you for your feedback

Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.

External Websites

Supergiant star

astronomy
Written and fact-checked by
Britannica Editors
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....
Britannica Editors
Last updated
•History
Learn about the different types of stars categorized according to their mass and temperature - red dwarfs, red giants, supergiants, white, and brown dwarf stars
Learn about the different types of stars categorized according to their mass and temperature - red dwarfs, red giants, supergiants, white, and brown dwarf starsOverview of several types of stars, notably the red dwarf, red giant, supergiant, white dwarf, and brown dwarf.
See all videos for this article

Supergiant star, any star of very great intrinsic luminosity and relatively enormous size, typically several magnitudes brighter than a giant star and several times greater in diameter. The distinctions between giants (see also giant star), supergiants, and other classes are made in practice by examining certain lines in the stars’ spectra. 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.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Robert Lewis.