red giant

noun

, Astronomy.

1. a star in an intermediate stage of evolution, characterized by a large volume, low surface temperature, and reddish hue.

red giant

noun

1. a giant star towards the end of its life, with a relatively low temperature of 2000–4000 K, that emits red light

red giant

1. A giant star that has a relatively low surface temperature, giving it a reddish or orange hue. Red giants are non-main-sequence stars positioned in the upper right of the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram . They are not massive stars but rather late, expanded stages of lower-mass main-sequence stars that have exhausted the hydrogen in their core and are fusing their remaining hydrogen into helium in a luminous outer shell. The Sun is expected to become a red giant in about 5 billion years, expanding to 70 times its current size and bringing its surface extremely close to Earth's present orbit.
2. See more at starSee Note at dwarf star

Word History and Origins

Origin of red giant¹

First recorded in 1915–20

Example Sentences

When the sun eventually becomes a red giant, its radius will actually reach outwards to Earth’s current orbit.

From Singularity Hub 

The scientists hope to find more stars like the elderly red giant, which could reveal how frequent magnetorotational hypernovas are.

From Science News

Using images from the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers found SN 2018zd’s progenitor, which turned out to be an old red giant.

From Popular-Science

By their hypotheses, a red giant would shed most of its mass before triggering its relatively small explosion.

From Popular-Science

The speed of the winds and how quickly a red giant loses mass as it slowly dies also play a role in making those shapes.

From Science News

The red giant had the advantage in height, if not in weight; the black giant in strength of muscle, if not in suppleness of limbs.

From Project Gutenberg

There was the fleck of white high up near the top of the red giant, its white-dwarf companion in transit.

From Project Gutenberg

Roger de Conde spoke no English, and yet she had plainly heard English words upon this man's lips as he addressed the red giant.

From Project Gutenberg

Nevertheless, he brought the car to anchor without a second's hesitation, drawing up alongside the humiliated red giant.

From Project Gutenberg

But the question as to how the red giant stars were formed has received less satisfactory and precise answers.

From Project Gutenberg