red supergiant

American  

[red soo-per-jahy-uhnt] / ˈrɛd ˈsu pərˌdʒaɪ ənt /

noun

red supergiants plural

1. Astronomy. a supergiant star with relatively low surface temperature and light that appears reddish.

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red supergiant Scientific  

1. An extremely large red giant star with a minimum of 15 solar masses. The best known red supergiant is Betelgeuse, with a luminosity about 10,000 times that of the Sun. When a supergiant collapses into a supernova, it may result in either a neutron star or a black hole.

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• red-supergiant
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• red supergiants
  plural

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

red supergiant

SN 2024ggi began as a red supergiant with a mass between 12 and 15 times that of the Sun and a radius 500 times larger.

From Science Daily ● Nov. 16, 2025

The most familiar example of a red supergiant is Betelguese, the bright reddish star in the shoulder of the constellation Orion.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 9, 2025

That's the red supergiant Betelgeuse - one of the largest dying stars in the Milky Way!

From Space Scoop ● Aug. 20, 2025

“We think it was quite a complicated merger,” Shenar says—one that possibly involved a helium-rich lower mass star spiraling into the puffy stellar atmosphere of an accompanying red supergiant.

From Scientific American ● Aug. 17, 2023

Pledger’s findings confirmed the stellar culprit to be a red supergiant.

From Scientific American ● Jul. 21, 2023